


as a child

by js71



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang (Avatar) Is Not The Avatar, Alternate Universe, BAMF Gaang (Avatar), Fire Nation Family Drama, Gaang (Avatar) as Family, Gen, Minor Character Death, Pohaui Stronghold, Toph Beifong Swears A Lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-19
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27635554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/js71/pseuds/js71
Summary: As a child, you would wait, and watch from far away…Under the light of a full moon, six teenagers (two of them are almost there, it's close enough) infiltrate the Pohuai Stronghold, attempting to liberate a pair of prisoners from the Fire Nation's grasp. The Air Nomads have stayed out of the war. The Earth Kingdom is falling. The Water Tribes are separated, seemingly scattered. The Avatar has been missing for decades.All the same, their attack on Pohuai kicks off a series of events that most people could have predicted--Sokka, namely--as life has a way of kicking their asses without a care in the universe. They're that kind of people, the kind who are ragtag, who drag each other in and out of fights, who live one day at a time because it's a war, a war they grew up with. A war they don't want to die fighting, but they will if it comes down to it, because the next generation won't live through this. They refuse.Updates Weekly! Every Thursday, GMT-7
Relationships: The Gaang (Avatar) & Other(s), The Gaang (Avatar) - Relationship
Comments: 4
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Team Avatar Tribute | Warriors (OLD)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/727035) by ikijay. 



Suki counted off silently, eyes focused on the road and ears trained on the sound of the carts that were slowly coming closer, their wheels groaning as they rolled through the ruts of the road, the heavy, plodding steps of the komodo rhinos that pulled them splashing. Suki hadn’t decided if the rain was a boon or a warning just yet, but they didn’t have a choice in the matter. Tonight was a full moon, and they couldn’t risk waiting for the next. She wouldn’t say it was important, per se, but they’d put effort into this. It needed to be done.

The first komodo rhino passed by, and Suki crept closer to the edge of the road, a few droplets of rain spattering against her face, making her squint, waiting with a hurried sort of patience for just the right moment--

She dove forwards, rolling between the wheels of the cart, and onto her back, so she was facing the bottom of it. Before it could roll away, she grabbed hold of the wooden slats, hooking her feet in them, and holding herself close. She didn’t dare move to check that Zuko and Sokka had made their carts, but by the lack of shouting and fireballs, she judged that they hadn’t been spotted, at the very least.

Suki relaxed marginally, adjusting her grip and settling in to wait for the rest of the trip to pass. She knew her part, and there was no reason to panic. Not yet, anyway.

Her wagon was the first one in the line, and she followed the torchlight that circled from one side to the other with her eyes, waiting for it to come around to her right. They’d watched dozens of these inspections beforehand, and she knew the timing, dropping down and silently rolling away, into the rain, silently darting into the cart, hiding behind the boxes of supplies, waiting with bated breath for the all-clear.

“Go ahead.”

She let out a soft breath of relief, the wagon moving forwards once more. Her heart-stopping part was over - it was the boy's turns now, and she trusted them not to get caught. More than she trusted that the adults would actually do their jobs correctly.

She ducked out of the wagon, grabbing onto the top of the back, swinging out of it and rolling upon her landing. Silently, she sprinted the few steps to the sewer grate - what a design flaw - and vaulted in, landing with a splash, and quickly backing out of the faint light of the torches, into the shadows.

Nobody had spotted her, and a minute later, Zuko joined her, followed by Sokka, both of them dressed in near-black clothing, scarves wrapped around their mouths and noses just like she did. It had been Zuko who’d pointed out that near-black blended in with shadows better then actual black did, while Suki and Katara had planned their uniforms, deciding to go for a functional style, and hoping that the dark colours would add to the mystique if they were spotted.

Zuko lit a small fire in his palm, lifting his hand to illuminate the sewers, the warm light glinting off the war fans at Suki’s hip, and the boomerang that Sokka carried, the light pulsing across their faces as he led them through the water, which almost reached Suki’s knees. She took up the middle position, Zuko in the lead, and Sokka watching their backs.

It was laughably easy to infiltrate the Pohuai Stronghold, they’d discovered. Not laughably, Suki corrected herself, but it was a great deal easier to do it than she’d expected. In retrospect, most infiltration groups didn’t have a Kyoshi Warrior, a bender from each element, and a Water Tribe kid who was far too good at planning things out. Sure, if they attacked the stronghold head-on, they’d probably get slaughtered, but good fighters knew to pick their battles, and how to fight those battles.

Zuko gestured upwards with the hand that did not hold a small flame, to where flickering gold light filtered into the sewers from above, alongside a healthy dose of rain. Perhaps too healthy, Suki mused to herself, as the downpour had gotten a great deal heavier from when they’d started, changing from a steady drizzle into a pounding mess of water.

She climbed out first, holding herself up to check that the coast was clear before she pulled herself over the lip of the grate and rolled away, offering Sokka a hand up, which he accepted, both of them sprinting towards the open doorway that was their newest goal. Zuko joined them moments later, the three of them dripping wet, but it was, of course, raining, so she doubted that it made much of a difference.

Sokka led them this time, as he was the one who’d memorized the layout, and not just the path they’d be taking. It wasn’t heavily guarded, less so than they’d expected from their scouting. It was easy to subdue them, one after another, without using any bending or even their weapons. Fire Nation armour was good, yes, but it didn’t have much on a good chokehold.

They found the first prisoner several floors up in the tower. It was easy to get rid of the trio of guards who stood before the door. Suki just kicked a stolen helmet across the hallway, causing one of them to come and investigate. A blow to the throat knocked the woman off-balance, letting Sokka pull her helmet right off, which allowed Zuko to slam the hilt of his dao into the back of her head. Suki caught her before she could fully collapse, and went to work using the woman’s own cuffs to chain her to the stairwell door.

The second guard also came to investigate when the first one didn’t return. He spotted them, and punched out with one fist, sending a fireball right at Sokka and Suki, who both dodged. The opening from that allowed Zuko to grab the man’s wrist, get his shoulder under the man’s arm, and flip him over, twisting into a chokehold. The flip was not silent, however, and the third guard came running, instead of, say, sounding the alarm. He also threw fire, and Sokka threw the first guard’s helmet at the red flames, blocking the hit. Suki slid in, swept the guard’s legs, and scrambled, getting under the guard and behind him, wrapping an arm across his throat and choking him out as well.

Choking was a remarkably useful subduing technique when you wanted to sneak around.

They chained the guards together, took the woman’s sword and stuck it in the ceiling, broke the horn that should have been used to alert the rest of the building to infiltrators in half, and searched the three guards for the keyring.

The door creaked open, the metal hinges uncared for and painfully loud in the silence. Suki knew the three of them cut an imposing figure as they stood in the doorway, their shadows stretching almost as far as the light from the hall did, lighting up a new hallway, with cells on either side of it. Nobody could see that imposing figure, however, as there were no guards, and all the cell doors were heavy metal, not letting even light pass through the seams. 

Suki took the lead, her steps soft but echoing in the dead silence of the halls. And it was eerie silence - they knew Pohuai Stronghold held prisoners. It was the entire reason they were there, and they knew that they were kept on this level. They hadn’t scouted for two full months for no reason, but the silence was horrifying, and Suki’s heartbeat picked up ever so much. 

The first few cells were empty, the small sliders that let them look in confirming that. The third one on the right, however, did hold someone. She pinned back against the wall, hands plastered there by chains, feet held similarly, with a gag over her mouth. Suki stepped to the side to let Sokka kneel down and try the keys. The third one worked, and Suki pushed open the door.

The woman lifted her head, ever so slightly. She was in green clothing, of the Earth Kingdom, but she wasn’t an earthbender. Earthbenders were restrained differently, and it wasn’t a firebending or waterbending setup either. It was air--they left non-benders to just rot.

Suki pulled out a thin dagger from within the folds of her clothing. The woman didn’t struggle or flinch, her eyes roaming over Suki’s figure, assessing her. She didn’t fight when the cold blade slid between the leather across her mouth and her cheek. Suki sliced the gag off, pulling it away, and the woman coughed, gasping for air. Suki set a gloved finger on the woman’s lips, gently, reminding her to try and be quiet, before she moved on to her feet, cutting the straps away, and then her hands, catching her when she pitched forwards.

The woman was taller than Suki was, a lot taller. Suki was only fourteen, and the woman was an adult, which explained the difference. Suki slid to her knees, supporting the woman under the arms, giving her time to recover. Within a few minutes, the woman was pulling back.

“Thank you,” she whispered hoarsely, her eyes wide in the light from the hall, flitting all over Suki’s face, taking in the reddish-brown ponytail, wisps of hair that had escaped plastered to her face by the rain, the mask over her face sticking to her skin. “But you’re going to get killed.”

Suki pulled back, and patted the woman on her shoulder twice, sheathing her knife, and standing up. She offered the woman a hand, and the airbender took it, letting Suki pull her to her feet. “I’m Opal. Who are you?”

Suki didn’t have an answer. She shrugged, but then Opal made an aborted gesture with one hand as if pleading for an answer of some kind. Suki sighed through her nose, and drew one war fan, using her fingers to spread it before her face.

“Fan?”

Suki nodded, returning the fan to its place, and gesturing for Opal to follow her back into the hallway. They’d thrown around some code names out of boredom but ended up going with basics, ones that people could guess since they’d decided that not speaking during their… whatever they were calling these things. A fan was an easy one for Suki.

“There’s only one other prisoner,” Opal said, clearing her throat halfway through the phrase, visibly resisting the urge to cough. “He’s at the end.”

Suki nodded and broke into a run, Opal following remarkably well for having been chained up only minutes earlier. The airbender stumbled to a stop in front of a cell on the left side, sliding it open. “Zei?”

Zuko and Sokka came up on Opal’s other side. Zuko cocked his head to the side in an exaggerated motion, which caught Opal’s eye. She took a step back, letting Sokka work on unlocking the door. “We were brought in together. Only prisoners. Rest were tran-transferred to another place. Don’t know where.”

Zuko nodded in understanding, and the door swung open. He stepped inside, returning a few moments later with a man in clothing similar to Opal’s, a non-bender. Zuko would have taken longer to free a bender.

With their job done, Suki gestured for them to leave, turning and running back the way they’d come, the two boys and two prisoners following behind her. They’d only just reached the doorway that should have been guarded by the trio they’d knocked out earlier when the horn sounded.

Suki didn’t stop running. Instead, she sped up, quickening her pace and not bothering to try and be silent anymore, letting her feet pound on the metal floor. The horn was close, so close that she knew exactly where it had come from, and just like she’d been expecting, it was a pair of guards who’d found the trio they’d chained up.

Suki whipped around the corner, jumping and kicking out, catching the guard with the horn in the chest with both of her feet, knocking him to the ground. She perched on him for barely a second, grabbing a war fan and snapping it out to its full width, using it to sweep away the fireball that was slung at her face.

They’d chosen the full moon for several reasons. It was a time that firebending was weaker, as it was at night, and it was when waterbending was at its strongest. Additionally, both the guards were dripping water, indicating that they’d come from outside, and their bending was weakened from that as well.

It was easy to bat the fireball away, and Suki lunged at the guard, low to the ground, and sweeping his legs out from under him. The first guard rolled onto his side and sent an attack in her direction, which she dodged, slamming a heel into his head a moment later and getting rid of him for the time being. She turned, in a crouch, both fans open and ready to take the last one, but Sokka was already there, the firebender crumpled on the ground. 

She nodded appreciatively and gestured for them to enter the stairwell. They needed to head up. Toph would be doing her distraction in the courtyard, and Katara would be there, watching her back. Aang and Appa would be waiting for them at the top of the tower, as per their escape plan.

There were guards rushing up the stairs. Zuko slammed a hand out, creating a branch of fire to keep them back, as Suki led their group up the stairs. For a prisoner, Opal was doing remarkably well, sending a gust of wind down the stairwell and knocking several of the soldiers to the ground, confirming the airbender theory. Suki had been starting to wonder if she was wrong about that upon noticing that the woman, who was certainly old enough to have earned mastery tattoos, didn’t have them.

Zei was the one to worry about. Sokka grabbed him under one arm when he stumbled, nearly falling on his face. Suki ignored the battle behind her, spinning around with a sharp kick and taking out one guard, throwing the second one over the railing, noting in the back of her mind that he landed on a bender that Zuko was duelling. She took the third one out with a few strikes. Sometimes, she really did wonder if the Fire Nation trained its soldiers, or if they just fitted them in armour and sent them off to look scary.

“We need maps!” Zei shouted, and Suki, not needing to focus on kicking someone’s ass just yet, as the next group of targets were still a few floors up, whirled to stare at him, resisting the urge to demand an explanation for that, because they were trying to stay alive, did this man not have any priorities?

He managed an explanation, gesturing towards himself with the arm that Sokka wasn’t holding to ensure that he didn’t fall off the stairs and die--Suki had very little faith in Zei, and what faith she had held for him had mostly been lost when he’d fallen on his face. Almost had fallen on his face, actually. If Sokka had been a little slower, Zei definitely would have fallen on his face.

“Professor, anthropology--library, it’s important, for the war--war effort.”

Suki nodded sharply, and turned, narrowly dodging a sword, and kicking off the wall, landing on the railing of the stairs. She ducked under the sword, and jumped at the soldier, knee raised, and slamming him into the wall, knocking him out. She slammed her war fans into the fire that the next soldier sent at her, and ducked forwards, under his guard. Delivering an elbow to his chin, and a foot into his stomach, sending him into the stairs.

She stomped on his head on her way past, confident that it knocked him out properly. If Zei knew about something that could help the war effort, they were going to either get their hands on it and steal it, or burn it to ash. So when he tried to get through a door on the wrong floor, she kicked it in, silently demanding for him to show the way.

She pointed Sokka towards the ceiling, using a pair of hand signs they’d formed ahead of time. “Go. Now.”

He pointed at her, questioning, and she hooked her thumb over her shoulder, indicating Zei, before repeating what she’d already signed. “Go. Now.”

He visibly scowled, but nodded, drawing his boomerang, and leading Opal and Zuko up. Suki knew that she’d have to come up with a new escape plan, but she was smart and capable. She wasn’t a little kid anymore, no matter what her mother thought.

There were very few soldiers on the level. And each door was labelled neatly, allowing her to find the one with the characters for SEIZED MATERIALS easily. She tried the door, which was unlocked. Huh.

Adults were dumbasses.

She began to search, not knowing what for, but Zei was the one who found a box of scrolls, calling her over. He began to transfer them over into a messenger bag he’d found, speaking all the while.

“Wan Shi Tong’s library is famous,” he narrated, “It could hold the secret to winning this war! But nobody’s ever found it in decades--”

Suki, if she’d been less-trained, would have screamed. As it was, she wanted to scream, but she didn’t even move, staring at the arrow that cut through Zei’s throat, coated in red blood that spattered across the table and the scrolls that were in the messenger bag, ready to go, but it didn’t save Zei. Nothing could save him.

Suki didn’t hesitate. She grabbed the messenger bag strap in one hand and snapped open a fan in the other, deflecting the second arrow. She slung the bag over her shoulder and drew her second fan as she vaulted over the table, kicked the bow off-centre, and spun around, elbow connecting with the man’s jaw. She continued to move, knee coming up and diving into the side of his gut.

It was the only archer and Suki kicked the knocked-out archer out of the doorway, slamming the door shut. She grabbed a sword that was one of the many stolen weapons held in the room, unused. She used it to jam the door shut, and spun towards the single, thin rectangle of a window.

She peered out. Rain beat across the glass, trails of water blurring her vision. She could, at least, tell that Toph and Katara were still down there, at least fifteen stories below. No way was Suki about to just jump--

Who was she kidding, she was totally going to jump.

She found a mace with a glance around the room and used it to shatter the window, poking the bits of the glass that were sticking to the frame out. She didn’t have much skill with a mace, so she just left it on the floor. Before doing anything else, she made sure that she had all the scrolls that Zei had been so passionate about, and made sure that they wouldn’t fall out during what her mother would call a stupid stunt, but what Suki would call interesting. And fun.

She balanced on the edge of the window, the rain slamming on her face and hair, clogging in her scarf and shirt and pants. She didn’t look back before dropping down onto the window below, grabbing the ledge with her fingertips.

The stronghold was built in layers, each floor smaller than the next, in an attempt to make it more stable. It meant that it was easy to drop from one layer to the next, without risking death too much. Although Suki wouldn’t call what she was doing all that risky.

She was almost all the way down to the ground, and then, then there were screams. The world went red, and Suki twisted her head, staring up at the moon, horrified. It should have been impossible. The sky didn’t do that, no matter what. The moon didn’t--it didn’t work like that.

Then the world changed. Colour seemed to bleed out of it, and Suki twisted, looking down to where Katara and Toph were fighting, lit up by the rain-beaten flames of the Fire Nation. The water Katara had been bending splashed to the ground as if she was no longer controlling it. But Katara would never do that, and if the sky was being strange, if the colour was being strange -

Suki jumped the last three floors, grabbing onto a banner that hung from the wall and swinging into the fight, sprinting towards the two benders. She took out the soldiers as she went, both fans open, the rain pittering off the metal, and came to a stop beside the girls, who Toph was defending on her own.

“Time to go!” Suki shouted as loudly as she could, panic finally setting in. “Now!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Phi](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww) for beta-reading this chapter for me, and correcting the little things I missed! If you want to talk to me or ask questions, my Tumblr is [js71](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)!
> 
> This story is going to be a few chapters long, and I'm hoping to post weekly updates - or, near-weekly. Might be a day early or behind. just depends on outside factors and my memory. And probably my internet family's ability to yell at me, lol. If you guys want to see the process behind writing this, we got sick of having no music on our old server - admin was never on - so we went and made a new one! It's supposed to be for DC Content, but it's really more like, come and be friends! We don't have cookies, but we do have colourful knife emoji's!
> 
> [Discord Server Link](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toph (still!) is blind and therefore cannot read, and this is How to Start Planning to Murder an Evil Fire Lord, 2020 edition.

“What the hell was that?” Toph demanded when they were finally alone. They’d stayed silent up until she’d spoken, minutes after they left Opal within walking distance of an Earth Kingdom village. She hadn’t asked where Zei was--either she’d guessed from Suki’s body language, the blood on the scrolls, or the lack of Zei’s presence alone.

At the very least, Zuko supposed, they’d gotten one person out. If nothing else came from their infiltration, they’d saved her, and that had to be worth something.

The rain had died out over the past few hours, leaving their group dripping, but it allowed them to take to the air again, Momo chewing on Appa’s reins, sitting in the place that the guide usually held. The sky was still thick with clouds, the colours that had bled out of the world after the moon had turned red having returned within an hour of their disappearance.

They were all shaken. It wasn’t a random attack on a patrol in the middle of the night or sabotaging a boat or airship or wagon. They’d done that before, desperate to make a difference, any difference. But this was something different. It had taken two months of stress-inducing scouting and planning, working out the logistics of how to get in and out, worrying over every detail they could think of. And while it had worked out nearly perfectly, the change of the moon had sapped the celebration out of their victory.

“The moon just.... turned red,” Sokka said, a hand on Katara’s shoulder. She had been wearing a blank stare ever since the moon had returned to normal - they hoped it had returned to normal, as they still couldn’t see it, but colour had returned to the world. With any luck, that meant the moon was fine again. “And then colours vanished.”

“Huh,” Toph said, leaning over the side of the saddle, and wringing out her rain-clogged scarf, the freed water plummeting towards the ground below. Zuko was close enough to her that he felt confident in his ability to catch her if she were to pitch over the side. “That’s not normal, right?”

“No,” Suki said simply, pulling the tie that held her hair out of her face out, freeing the dried out, now-stiff sections of reddish-brown hair, allowing them to fall around her ears, retaining the waves that the ponytail caused. She combed her fingers through it, tucking it behind her ears. “And Katara lost her bending. That’s not normal either.”

Aang shrugged, tapping a finger on the side of the saddle, staring out across the Earth Kingdom. They couldn’t see the ground in the darkness, but there were visible spots of light that told them where towns might be--in other words, places to avoid. He, like the rest of them, was still in what Sokka had dubbed their “sneaky-ninja-gear”. The name hadn’t caught on.

“It’s over now,” Zuko said, not able to come up with anything else to say, “Nothing we can do about it.”

There was a general murmur of agreement. Suki pulled out a dry set of clothes from her pack, and Katara came out of her stupor enough to hold up a blanket to hide her while she changed. It wasn’t like they hadn’t seen each other injured or beaten up, but all the same, privacy was something they all liked to have. Except for Toph. Toph didn’t seem to understand the concept.

Using said blanket and taking turns, they stripped out of their wet clothes, and into dry ones. They were Earth Kingdom style, making it easy to blend in when they stopped in villages for food and supplies and information, and fairly comfortable. There wasn’t much to say, and they ended up rolling out a few sleeping bags at the back of the saddle, pressing close to each other for warmth as usual. Normally someone would be guiding Appa, but the bison was remarkably self-sufficient, and they didn’t have a destination in mind anyway. At least not yet. They’d come up with something. The messenger bag Suki had brought seemed promising, even if they were too drained to ask her about the fairly worrisome amount of blood spattered on some of them.

Zuko slept fine, if not well. It was the kind of light sleep that was always frustrating, where you bobbed between being awake and being asleep, aware that you were there, but also not so aware that you could pull yourself out of it on your own. It wasn’t a restless sleep, but it was an uncomfortable one. When Katara finally clambered over them all as the sunlight began to illuminate the edges of the horizon, her knees and elbows bony and sharp, not even trying to hide that she was awake, Zuko couldn’t help but be glad. He extracted himself from Toph, who’d been clinging to him like a limpet, and she rolled over, hugging Sokka’s arm instead. 

Zuko crept to the front of the saddle, climbing over it so he was sitting there, feet hanging down. He watched Katara settle into place, Momo slowly climbing up her back and falling asleep across her shoulders. She gathered the reins, and Appa began to descend, sliding down in the sky. They travelled at night. It was harder to be spotted at night when there was no sun to cast shadows, the moon’s light usually subdued, or even non-existent, making their shadow even less of an issue.

They didn’t say anything. Behind them, Suki said something in her sleep, words garbled and incomprehensible. As long as they all got a fairly normal amount of sleep every day, he wasn’t too concerned. Not much could top Aang’s week-long sprint of not sleeping, and the subsequent hallucinations that he’d had as a product of them. It had been enough for Zuko to nudge Katara just slightly, and she’d put her foot down on the no-sleeping wagon. There were no excuses.

“How are you?” Zuko said finally, lifting his chin as the sun began to peak across the thin line of the horizon, the lacklustre feeling fading away as the beams touched his face, already warm. He could feel his inner fire flaring in response to the sun, and he began to absent-mindedly focus on his breathing, working air in and out, meditating without a candle.

Katara glanced over her shoulder. She didn’t look like she’d slept much, and if what Zuko suspected was correct, she’d have been suffering from elemental withdrawal for an hour, without being eased into it as most elemental withdrawals usually happened, and then it’d snapped back into place. He was somewhat surprised she wasn’t comatose.

Her shoulders rose and sagged when she sighed, turning her eyes back to the front, her hair loose and rippling in the wind as much as it could. Nobody had really dried off the night before beyond changing their clothes and wringing out the wet ones, and their hair, should it be long enough. Katara hadn’t even wrung out her hair, much less brushed it, leaving it to dry in stiff sections that batted at her face and shoulders.

Zuko wondered if she’d say anything else. He didn’t have anything else to say, so it was up to Katara to continue the conversation if she wanted to. He hoped she would. It was starting to get the slightest bit awkward with no one saying anything.

Momo made a grumbling noise and shook himself awake, flipping over and landing on Zuko’s knees. He buried himself against Zuko’s stomach, flopping down and making a rumbling, contented noise. Once again, Zuko was the hot pack. In any case, he didn’t mind it with Momo; the lemur was soft and friendly and had only ever bitten someone once. And that someone had been a salesman who’d wanted to make lemur soup. Zuko thought the creature was justified in biting said man.

Appa landed with a groan. Katara had found them a small forestry space with a river flowing past that seemed fairly secluded. They’d have to get Toph to check, although both she and Aang had passed out on the ground, even after Sokka and Suki pulled them out of Appa’s saddle so that they could take the gear off the flying bison. Sometimes Zuko forgot that they were, like, twelve years old. He was pretty sure twelve-year-olds needed more sleep than fourteen-year-olds. Or sixteen-year-olds.

He always got whiplash upon realizing that he was the oldest member of the group. Aang and Toph were the youngest, with Katara only about a year older than them, even if she was bossy enough that it seemed like more, and Zuko was the oldest. Sokka was a few months to a year younger than he was, with Suki a month or so behind him. It made him feel like he was responsible for them all, which was wrong for so many reasons. Zuko was not that kind of responsible. Anyone who thought he was, had either had gotten hit in the head too hard or needed Suki to hit them in the head.

Honestly, they were kind of concerning when he thought about it. A firebender who was a banished prince, a blind earthbender who was running away from overbearing parents, a warrior who was basically doing the same, another warrior and his sister who’d gotten fed up of waiting to just get killed and gone out to do something about it, and an airbender who wanted to make a difference but also couldn’t hurt anyone because he felt bad every time he did. Alongside a remarkably patient and wise flying bison and a possibly-below-average-flying lemur. And they’d decided to go against the Fire Nation because the rest of the world, even if it was doing something, wasn’t doing too well of a job at it.

Adults were dumb, was something that was thrown around maybe too much with them, but it really did ring true in some situations. It would have been easy to just send an assassin way back at the start of all the death and bloodshed to take Sozin’s head off. It was a morbid thought, yes, but it was also true. Nobody ever seemed to assassinate anyone else when it was useful, such as when they were building up to start a war.

And the Avatar hadn’t stopped him either. Zuko was sure that the Avatar, whoever they were, wasn’t dead, but they certainly weren’t doing anything helpful. If they could at least pick a side so that they could either start planning around whoever said Avatar might be or start planning said Avatar’s assassination, that would be great.

Zuko knew for a fact that Sokka had at least six different assassination ideas that he’d like to use, but they hadn’t quite figured out how to get on the main Fire Nation island without sounding every single alarm on it. And assassinations were supposed to be stealthy - riding in on a flying bison and stabbing the Fire Lord wasn’t stealthy, nor would Aang approve, which was why nobody had told him that Sokka spent some evenings planning how to kill Azulon without getting caught. Or that Toph enjoyed chiming in on the plans. Although her suggestions were usually along the lines of throwing large rocks and crushing things, or trying to make a volcano erupt, which she possibly could do. They didn’t want to find out until they absolutely had to.

Well, Toph did. The rest of them didn’t.

Katara waded into the river with the clothes they’d used the night before in a basket, bending a strange sort of ice table to keep it on while she washed them. Zuko and Sokka were stuck on food duty, while Suki took her fans and went to wander--in other words, scare anyone who might be hiking nearby off.

They filled a pot with water from the river, which was freezing cold, and not from Katara’s ice, and set up a cooking-station-whatever easily enough, gathering firewood and setting it alight to start heating up the water. They then went out in search of more firewood, since what they’d gathered wouldn’t last as long as they needed it to, and while Zuko could use bending to stretch out how long the fire would burn for, they were all still exhausted on multiple levels, not just physically.

When they got back to their camp, Katara was bending the water out of the clothes, folding them up and returning them to their owner’s packs as she went, almost looking lost in the repetitive motions of the task. The boys returned to the fire and the warming water, feeding the flames and going in search of the rice, counting out the correct amount of handfuls to add to the pot. They gathered the bowls and cutlery, and the day passed slowly, almost in endless silence, broken only by the occasional question, usually a request for help, or softly calling someone’s name.

Suki returned unharmed and accepted the bowl of rice Zuko offered her as Sokka moved to wake up the youngest members of their ground. Toph, through liberal grumbling, confirmed that nobody was around before she started shovelling food in her mouth. Aang was more considerate, thanking Zuko and Sokka for the meal.

When the pot had been cleaned out and the bowls washed, when Appa was snoring in the background and Momo’s face was stained red from berries, and when they were all awake, Suki brought out the scrolls. She didn’t say how the blood had gotten across them, but Zuko could guess, and that alone was enough. He didn’t say anything about it as she set them out, passing them around, her voice soft and slightly rough from the hours of disuse.

“Zei said that this could change the war effort,” she said, and Toph sighed, a bit dramatically, leaning against Zuko, not having been given a scroll because she couldn’t read it. Zuko unrolled the scroll he’d been given, starting to read from the beginning. The characters were uniform as if done by stamps and not by hand, perfectly aligned and straight, speaking of different expeditions. There was definitely something missing, as the author--Zei, most likely--cited source after source, but none of them were ever given, and he also cited things he’d supposedly already mentioned, but it wasn’t in the scroll Zuko had.

He read it all the way through anyway and rolled it back up, taking a different scroll off the pile. He was apparently the fastest reader, as Katara was mouthing the words to herself, using her finger to hold her place, not even a fourth of the way through it, and Aang was already distracted, staring at the river with a blank-eyed stare.

Zuko was used to Aang zoning out, and Katara tended to just be a slow reader. He set down the finished scroll and reached for a new one, tapping Aang’s shoulder to get his attention. Aang startled, jerking in surprise, and Zuko pointed at the scroll in his hands. The other boy flushed and went back to reading, scratching Momo behind the ears with one hand.

Toph yawned dramatically, waving a hand over her mouth. Katara didn’t look up, but Aang and the others did. Toph, leaning back against Zuko’s side, crossed her arms and ankles and tilted her head back. “Find anything yet?”

“This is just about desert weather patterns,” Suki declared, gesturing to her scroll with a frown. “Has anyone else gotten something about Wan Shi Tong? You guys know who that is?”

“No clue,” Aang said unhelpfully, waving his scroll around, Momo chittering at him as he did, “Mines about people who have gone missing and died. Or they think they died. And sometimes they just found bodies.”

That was not encouraging. Zuko sighed and turned to look at Sokka, who was the only other person who had gotten far enough along in his scroll to know what it was talking about. The strategist shrugged helplessly, holding up his scroll. “It’s about a legend. Which is probably what Zei was on about if I had to guess. Wan Shi Tong is a spirit who owns a library in the Si Wong Desert. What’s the Si Wong Desert?”

“It’s this giant sandy lump of nothin’,” Toph supplied, rapping her knuckles on the ground and sitting up, crossing her legs. A model map of the world rose out of the ground, memorized by Toph from all the times they’d drawn it in the dirt with a stick so she knew what was happening and where they were pointing at. One section of the map, in the Earth Kingdom, rose up higher than the rest, indicating the desert she was talking about. “It’s supposed to be basically uninhabited, but it’s really not. Bunch of bandits and crap live there, apparently.”

A pause. Toph sighed. “Again, just because I hated my lessons doesn’t mean I didn’t _listen_ to them.”

Katara sighed, finally looking up from her scroll. “So, something about a spirit, something about a desert, something about death and weather.”

“I think he was searching for something,” Suki said, “Zei, I mean. Whatever it was, he thought it could turn the tide of the war, or at least that it was worth looking for.”

They kept reading. Some of the scrolls talked about other things, usually history of some kind. One was an essay on ancient Earth Kingdom building tools that went through one ear and flew out the other. They managed to finish reading the pile within the hour, but without anything else to do, it left them staring at Toph’s map, trying to figure out exactly what Zei had been looking for.

He’d wanted to find the library, that much was clear. And if what he’d written was to be believed, said library could help turn the war effort, even if they weren’t quite sure how it would do that. In any case, it wouldn’t help their side of the war if the Fire Nation got its hands on the library. Hence they needed to either find it and potentially set it on fire, burn whatever led them to it, or use it before the Fire Nation could.

It was the same concept as their raids on troop supplies. They disrupted the Fire Nation’s efforts and then fed what they stole into the Earth Kingdom, usually nearby villages, and keeping whatever they needed. Although, instead of messages about troop positions and food rations, they’d be doing it with priceless information, books and scrolls. And yeah, it was uncomfortable to know that their first thought was that they needed to destroy whatever it might be to keep it away from the Fire Nation. Book and scroll burnings in history never had positive connotations.

“Well, it’s somewhere in the desert, and it’s missing,” Katara said, poking at the mound of earth with a stick she’d picked up from the firewood pile. “So, it’s probably not somewhere near any towns. Sokka, give me the map.”

He did, and she crossed out spots on Toph’s map of where known settlements were. Despite it being next to empty according to what Toph had been taught, there was a surprising amount of known settlements, mostly around the fringe of the desert, but several in the middle of it as well. It left a portion of the map empty, and Katara circled it. “So if it’s uninhabited, this is probably our best bet then.”

“What, are we just going to fly around on Appa staring at the sand?” Toph challenged, waving a hand in front of her eyes, “I dunno if you’ve noticed, but I’m blind, and Sparky here is half-blind. So that’s four and a half people who can actually look for it. Maybe less, since Momo’s an attention hog.”

Momo rumbled in agreement, flopping down on Aang’s leg, demanding to be petted. Aang, since he had no self-control, obliged the flying lemur, who sagged in delight. They all turned back to Toph, who shrugged. “This is like getting me to read one of those scrolls. No way is it happening.”

“Weirder things have happened,” Suki argued, gesturing towards the sky, “Last night the moon turned red and colours left the world. They came back, so who's to say that we can’t find this library. Besides, what other plan do we have? Zei believed in it, and he died for it.”

Sokka muttered something along the lines of how Zei couldn’t even walk up stairs without help, so maybe that wasn’t the best way of judging it. But Suki ignored him, standing up and gesturing with both hands, which meant that she’d already made up her mind on the subject. “We have to at least try. Until we come up with a better idea, this is all we got. Unless you want to go back to destroying wagons?”

Zuko didn’t want to go back to that. He knew it made a difference, but it didn’t feel like it had. Even though their rescue had been kind of a flop, they’d made an actual, visible difference with it, freeing Opal and stealing the scrolls from the Fire Nation. If Suki was convinced that they could find this library, he was with her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to [Syvelya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syvelya/pseuds/Syvelya) and [Phi](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww) for their help in beta’ing this chapter, even if lil’ sis’ beta job was a mix of questioning and teaching her how to write, using my made-up writing terms, which are awful. 
> 
> There’s got to be a better way of describing the difference between “number-numbers” and “letter-numbers”. But I don’t know a better way, so this is how we’re doing things!
> 
> If you want to talk to me or ask questions, my Tumblr is [js71](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)! You can also join us crazy people in the [Discord server](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz), where you may possibly come over questions about how demons are summoned in dreams - you know who you are - and you can also learn how Jay keeps on walking into burns about being old.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FUCKING FORGOT ABOUT THIS!!! Blame online school, I hate it. I hate it so much. I will murder my teachers soon, don't worry, the bodies will be burned.
> 
> Finding a library in a desert is really fucking hard, and this is a Petition to Let Sokka Say Fuck 2020.

It turned out finding a library was really fucking hard. Especially when that library was in the middle of a desert, and they were flying above said desert, and one of them couldn’t help the rest of them look. That wasn’t Toph’s fault, but the joke of her pointing randomly and shouting had gotten old the first time she did it.

She’d seemingly realized that, as for the past hour, she hadn’t said anything.

Zuko looked like he was dying from the heat, which made sense. Firebenders ran hot, which was starting to become a redundant realization, but it was still true, and they were flying across the desert, which was called a desert for a reason. Sokka was dying, and he’d been using a blanket to cast shade across himself and Suki, who was holding up the other end of the blanket.

He wasn’t sure they were really looking anymore. The only bright side was that the sun was going down, which was really more like a dark side - any appreciation of anyone’s humour had died alongside Toph’s blind jokes that morning. Sokka didn’t make the obvious crack that he normally would have; he was pretty sure his appreciation of humour had been left somewhere in the stronghold alongside what he was pretty sure had been his sanity.

Aang let out a sigh, but nobody looked over at him. His few attempts at starting a conversation since they’d started searching had all gone down the drain. “Let’s land. Find somewhere to sleep.”

“Sounds good,” Katara said dully, and nobody else said anything. Appa began to glide down through the air, and Sokka slumped against the edge of the saddle, giving up on the blanket. Suki sighed through her nose, and let it fall away, flopping down onto her back, throwing an arm over her eyes to shield them from the slowly setting sun.

They picked at a mixture of dried berries - most of them went to Aang - and jerky strips that were getting a bit too old and tough. Sokka couldn’t remember how long you could leave jerky strips before they went bad, but he didn’t want to find out, and it tasted fine.

“We’re going to have sand everywhere,” Toph groaned, from where she was practically glued to Zuko’s side. Sokka was pretty sure she was having issues seeing through the sand, if her horrified expression upon setting foot on it was any indication, alongside the way she’d grabbed at Zuko’s arm more than once. “Sand is awful, Zuko, agree with me.”

“Sand if awful,” Zuko parroted obediently. He looked a bit better now that the sun was gone, which was definitely some kind of paradox. Usually the moment the sun vanished he slumped, but there was such a thing as too much sun, as they’d found out recently, when Suki had insisted they purchase a weird jar of cream that she’d slathered across their exposed skin, saying that otherwise they’d get burnt. Nobody had laughed at what could be considered a joke.

“Thank you, Zuko,” Toph said, sounding the tiniest bit more cheerful, and taking a bite out of her jerky. At the very least, she tried to take a bit out of it, but they’d left it to sit for too long apparently since she had to use both hands to pull at it and fight before she managed to tear a strip off.

Suki frowned, looking lost in her thoughts. Or maybe she’d gotten sun-sickness or something. Sokka wasn’t sure that he didn’t have sun-sickness. They’d stopped sometime around noon for Katara to spend half an hour throwing up, which wasn’t in the least bit reassuring. Sokka felt like he wanted to throw up, even though he didn’t think he would. Maybe it would make him feel better, in some roundabout way. Like he could purge the heat from his system.

He knew it didn’t work that way, but he could still hope that it did.

“If we do this for too long, someone’s going to get sick,” he said, already done with his share of the jerky, “Katara’s already sick.”

“‘m not sick,” Katara protested feebly, utterly unconvincing. She was pale, her face drawn in a way that Sokka had seen many times before, when people in the village got sick, a glazed look taking over their expression and body language. She was also swaying here and there and hadn’t eaten much of her jerky, which wasn’t reassuring. 

“Pretty sure you’re sick,” Toph argued. Sokka was pretty sure that Toph couldn’t tell if Katara was sick or not, but so long as the earthbender was on his side, he didn’t care. The more people who ganged up on Katara to point out that she looked absolutely awful, the better.

Katara scowled and opened her mouth to fire back a retort, only to snap her jaw shut, a nauseous expression taking over her face. She didn’t, however, throw up, which could only be a good thing. Suki huffed, swallowing the last of her jerky.

“We need to at least try. Two more days, and then we can give up.”

“We’re not going to find a missing mystical library in two days,” Sokka said, seriously starting to doubt Suki’s sanity, alongside his own, “Well, we could, but it’s going to be really hard.”

Aang shrugged, still managing to summon some amount of enthusiasm, and grin. “Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky!”

“Lucky,” Zuko repeated, with no small amount of sarcasm in his voice or body language. “If you mean unlucky, then sure. If you mean good luck, then I’m not so convinced.”

The night was cold because it was a desert. Deserts would kill you with fire in the day, and ice at night. So despite the utter horror that they would have shown only a few hours earlier at sharing body heat, they ended up gathered together at Appa’s side within half an hour of the sun’s disappearance.

The next day was even worse. Maybe it was because they knew what to expect, or maybe that was just how it worked, but they ended up stopping for Katara twice before noon, and she gave up on looking for the library soon after the second time, tenting a thin blanket at the back of Appa’s saddle, and doing her best to ignore the world.

Appa himself didn’t seem to be enjoying the heat any more than the rest of them were. He flew low, skimming over the burning dunes, and Aang didn’t have the heart to make him go any higher. Momo, who’d spent the first day of searching flapping around their heads, seemingly enjoying the heat, crawled into Katara’s shade and stayed there.

The one person who was doing better than they had been the day before was Zuko. It could be because he was a stubborn idiot - he was a stubborn idiot - but Sokka had a suspicion that it had to do with bending. He had no clue how, but he knew it had to do with that.

“You know what,” Suki said, seemingly realizing something. She sat up straight, snapping her fingers, and pointing at Sokka, a grin spreading across her face. She was paler than usual from that cream that she’d bought, and she was covered in beads of sweat like the rest of them. “I might have an idea.”

“Great,” Sokka said, unable to summon the energy to do anything else. He sighed, closing his eyes, and heard Suki head to the back of the saddle, rummaging for something. She must have woken Katara up, because Katara made a quiet, almost pained cross between a moan, grumble, and question. Suki _shh’ed_ her, and when Sokka looked up, she’d changed from her Earth Kingdom clothes into her sneaky-ninja-gear.

“Suki,” he groaned, hiding his face in his arms again, “Black _absorbs_ heat.”

“These fabrics breathe,” Suki said, although her face fell slightly, the excitement waning, “The Earth Kingdom stuff doesn’t. This might be better.”

“Whatever,” Toph sighed, holding out a hand. She’d been playing cards with herself, using a stack of rock rectangles as the cards. They’d guided her in making them upon the realization that she couldn’t differentiate between the different paper ones. “Gimme.”

It wasn’t like there was anything else to do, and in any case, Sokka trusted Suki. And he knew nothing about clothing, anyway. Momo probably knew - no, Momo tried to eat dirt. Sokka knew more about clothes than Momo did. He changed, alongside the others, and went back to laying half-on the saddle’s rim, staring out upon the desert, waiting for something to appear of the sand.

He didn’t expect _anyone_ to see _anything_ , so Aang’s shout caught him off-guard. It also surprised the others; Toph yelped, dropping her stone cards in surprise, Katara sat up, catching her face on the blanket-tent, and Suki startled. Only Zuko didn’t act surprised, slowly turning to look where Aang was pointing.

“You’re kidding, right?” Sokka said, upon seeing the stone spire that stabbed out of the dunes. He gripped his head in both hands, not sure what he wanted to do, but feeling slightly more violent than usual. Maybe bash something with his boomerang. “Seriously? People have been looking for this for ages, and we just find it? Without even trying?”

“Maybe that’s the secret,” Aang suggested, turning Appa and heading directly for the tower. Now that they had a real goal in mind, he’d regained his excitement. Sokka wondered if he’d also found his sense of humour upon finding his enthusiasm because he needed a laugh of some kind. It had been too long. “If you’re not looking for it, you find it, but if you are, you can’t find it!”

A pause.

“I thought you guys were looking for it,” Toph said, with next to no inflection in her voice. “So, by Twinkle-Toes’ logic, I would have been the one to find it.”

“Does it matter?” Katara asked, shading her eyes with her hand as she stared out across the sand, towards the tower. Her voice was hoarse and rough and dry, sounding like she’d tried to drink sand instead of water. “That might not even be the library. Could be - an abandoned lookout post. Or something.”

“Don’t look at me,” Toph said, even though none of them had been. “I wasn’t taught about anything about wars, or that stuff. My parents thought it was _unsanitary_.”

They landed at the tower base. Toph shuffled forwards, a pained expression on her face. It was probably the sand, Sokka thought. He’d slipped getting down and used a hand to catch himself; the sand was hot enough that you could probably boil water using it. That was if the water didn’t evaporate before it boiled. She set a hand on the brick outer wall, concentrating.

“It’s big,” she reported, stepping back and turning around to face them, shaking the hand she’d placed against the tower as if it was burning, which it probably was if the bricks were anything like the sand. “I’d bet it’s a library. You guys have fun.”

“You’re not coming?” Katara asked, wiping sweat from her forehead again. Sokka was worried that she’d stop sweating - if the person who’d sold Suki the jar of weird anti-sun cream was being truthful, that was when they needed to start worrying about her.

At least if you died via hypothermia, you didn’t feel like you were melting. Dying from the desert seemed like torture.

“I can’t read,” Toph reminded her, smirking and stretching her hands up above her head, cracking her knuckles. She relaxed into a more casual stance. “Not a fan of libraries. And somebody’s gotta stay here and keep Appa company, right? Sparky, you can stay with me.”

“Why Zuko?” Sokka asked because Zuko was the best reader out of all of them. Had probably learned to read the earliest, being a prince and all. Ex-prince? They weren’t sure if he’d been labelled as dead or a traitor. It wasn’t like they’d tried to hide that they had a prince with them. Well, they had. But they hadn’t tried that hard.

Toph wiggled her fingers. “Well, fire and books? Also, Fire Nation.”

“Good points,” Suki admitted, glancing towards said Fire Nation. “Zuko, you’re good here?”

He shrugged. “Yeah.”

There were no stairs. There was also no door, which was the bigger concern. In the end, they just got Appa to carry them to the top of the tower, where there were empty windows that they could climb through - Toph had cheerfully offered to bend them a door, but they’d decided to at least try and appear respectful, even if they probably weren’t as respectful towards things as they should have been. Adults, laws, spirits, the list went on and on.

They did have a rope. Which was useful.

The library, because it was a library, was very big. As in, Sokka had never seen a building this big before, and from what he could tell, it was at least as big as one of those Fire Nation ships. Probably bigger, Sokka reflected, as he climbed down the rope, glad that Suki had the idea for them to change into their sneaky-ninja-gear. It had a better grip.

The walls were ornate, which was a word Sokka didn’t usually have a use for, but if the boot fit, you wore it. He wasn’t sure if the inside of the walls were made of stone, or carefully carved wood, and without taking his gloves off, he wouldn’t be able to tell with sight alone. Toph could have told him, just through what she could bend and what she couldn’t, but Toph had sat down in the twoer’s shadows alongside Zuko, and maybe even started to take a nap.

The tower was tall. And then, when they reached the bottom of that and Sokka was starting to worry that Katara would lose her grip and fall, they had to keep going, because whoever had built the library had gone for splendour, instead of practicality. The tower had no stairs, and no way of getting up or down it, unless you could airbend - the tower was a bit too tight for that - or had a rope.

The rope wasn’t quite long enough to reach the ground, which was definitely going to be a problem in the future. Sokka already had a few ideas on how to fix that problem as he dropped down onto the floor, rolling out of Katara’s way, the weight of the pack on his back unfamiliar when coupled with the motion. They weren’t sure how long they’d be down in the library, or exactly what they’d need, so they’d packed some essentials and just gone for it. Although they hadn’t packed for Momo, who’d decided to come along.

Sokka was just hoping they wouldn’t come across something that liked to eat flying lemur. He wasn’t going to babysit Momo, and Aang would be devastated if anyone ate the furry little terror.

“Hello!” Aang shouted because he didn’t understand what stealth was. His voice echoed around the library, through the deserted halls - Tui and La, Sokka hoped they didn’t find a corpse. That would put a dampener on the exploration. “Is anybody here?”

It turned out someone was inhabiting the library, someone who was alive, or at least moving, and hopefully not a corpse. Sokka was simultaneously glad that he’d brought his weapons and that Suki had brought hers, and irritated that they’d allowed Aang to come. 

“Oh, no,” Suki whispered, shifting into a different stance; not quite a warrior's stance, but definitely closer to that than a casual one. Sokka was a step behind her, which allowed him to see how she already was gripping a fan, hiding it behind her back, poised to snap it open and attack or defend, probably the former, knowing her. Sokka already had his boomerang drawn, held at his side, only partially hidden. He wasn’t as subtle as Suki was.

Oh, no, turned out to be far too accurate for Sokka’s tastes. Zei hadn’t given any descriptions of the owner of the spirit library, but while most people would have said that nothing could prepare them for Wan Shi Tong, Sokka would have to agree. He wasn’t most people. Wang Shi Tong was one of the more tame things their group had encountered. Ish. He fell somewhere in the middle of Sokka’s scale of insanity.

He was tall, tall enough that it explained the size of the library’s structures, and looked a lot like some kind of bird, utterly-black, with a spotless white face. The ground shook with his steps, only slightly, but it was enough to put Sokka on edge. Their group’s experience with spirits wasn’t a good one.

“Hello!” Aang said brightly because he was that kind of idiot. Someday, Sokka swore, he was going to walk up to - to - to a _bear_ , and get eaten by it. He’d probably apologize for it too. It made you wonder if all the Air Nomads were like that, or if Aang was an anomaly, which he possibly was. The rest of the Nomads had stayed in their temples, and out of the war. “Are you Wan Shi Ton? This is your library, right?”

Suki let out the quietest of frustrated groan-sighs, and Sokka was tempted to do the same. The spirit, Wan Shi Tong, cocked his head, as if considering, but didn’t hesitate to answer, his voice rumbling and smooth and setting Sokka on edge from the moment he spoke.

“I am Wan Shi Tong,” the spirit agreed, “He who knows ten thousand things. And you are humans.”

Oh. So, not only was the spirit living in fucking isolation in the middle of a desert, he hated humans. This was going to be awful if their record was any indication at all. Which, unfortunately, it usually was, and Sokka wondered if Suki would agree to a bet on how long it would take for this adventure to blow up in their faces. He was going to say within two hours, at the most. If they were lucky.

“So?” Katara asked, sounding marginally better. They were out of the sun - the library was buried, and compared to the desert heat, it was ice-cold. It was refreshing. “We’d like to look around. It’s not every day that you find a library like this.”

Was Katara trying to win over the giant, isolated, buried-library in a desert, bird spirit? Because if she was, Sokka might have to rethink his bet from two hours down to two minutes. Nobody in their group was all too good at negotiating. Zuko was too awkward and hesitant whenever it happened, Toph couldn’t be bothered to care, Katara continually did too much or too little, Aang was far too honest, Suki dissolved into threats without much hesitation, and Sokka was usually left to clean up the mess as best he could, which he wasn’t too good at. 

There was a reason they’d decided not to speak when running raids and whatnot on the Fire Nation. Six ninja-people sabotaging them was scary. Six teenagers dressed as ninja-people squabbling was laughable and not what they were going for. Even if Sokka was just a tiny bit interested in watching their faces when they got beat up by a twelve-year-old pacifist who said sorry far too much, or a twelve-year-old who was blind and loud about it.

Wan Shi Tong rattled off something about humans wanting information to hurt each other, and Sokka really wanted to just punch the guy. Because there was a war going on, and people were dying, on both sides. Yes, they wanted information, and yeah, it could be used to hurt people, but what the spirit was doing? Just sitting in a library, refusing to take sides, when he could help end the war, and stop the death? Sokka considered that to be the worst position in the war.

But apparently, they were doing okay at negotiating for once, and managed to offer up something that the giant bird spirit would accept; Suki’s book on weapons, which she’d definitely memorized and had probably been hoping to off-load onto the bird spirit anyways, as it was pretty heavy and Sokka could think of no other reason she’d brought it. Katara held up that waterbending scroll they’d stolen from a market a few weeks earlier, and Aang brightly offered the pack of scrolls that Zei had written. It wasn’t like they were going to use them anyway, and while Wan Shi Ton did seem a bit concerned when he discovered the blood, Aang’s wince and explanation of running away from a fight seemed to pacify the fucking giant bird.

Sokka was not over the size of the spirit. It was. A fucking. Giant. Black. Bird-thing, with a white mask-like fucking face, and it seemed to be able to stare right into your fucking mind and know every little fucking thing you were thinking, and Sokka didn’t fucking like it in the least. 

If Katara knew he was cursing so much in his head, she’d start screaming. Toph, on the other hand, would probably be delighted, as would Suki and Zuko. Aang would most certainly be scandalized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear [Phi](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww); AMV's are for both watching and listening. But I get bored just watching them, hence why I listen to them while writing. Additionally, thanks for checking this chapter for me!
> 
> As always, you can find my Tumblr at [js71](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests). You're liable to stumble across us siblings shouting at each other in the tags of reblogs, so that is your fair warning of the week.
> 
> [Discord Server Link](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was the chapter that Night said had, and I quote; "a super cool fight so I highly reccomend it", spelling error and all. Keep in mind this was on Discord, spelling, what is spelling? Never heard of him, that some TV show?

Azula was a perfectionist. It had always bothered Lu Ten, just how perfect she was, how perfect his uncle Ozai thought she was, how her hair was always symmetrical and her robes smooth, her bending impeccable. There was just something unnatural about her, not that Lu Ten would dare to voice such a thought. While the walls of the palace didn’t have ears, the servants certainly did, and Lu Ten didn’t trust his uncle not to have eyes and ears everywhere.

Ozai had only ever encouraged perfection. Raised Azula, and lowered Zuko--Lu Ten wasn’t thinking about Zuko--using the boy as a verbal punching bag, and nobody had ever stopped it. Lu Ten hadn’t, even though he should have known better, and Ursa did things that seemingly tried to balance out Ozai’s influence, even though it wasn’t enough. Lu Ten’s father didn’t do anything, and his grandfather was far too busy with the war to care what his sons did with their children. Lu Ten did think that Azulon had noticed something, and at the very least he’d done something, sending Zuko off to train with Master Piando when he was younger. While it had protected Zuko from Ozai, it had also made the divide between them painfully clear.

It wasn’t a good idea. All it would take was a few cracks in Azula’s worldview, and she’d come crashing down, and it certainly wouldn’t be pretty. Lu Ten had seen more than one soldier crack under the pressure, or under other things, and while the results varied, he doubted Azula would be on the side that sat silently and stared at the walls.

The cracks were obvious as well, at least to Lu Ten. She was used to constant admiration, constant praise. Depriving her of that, even just a little bit, would be enough to start sending spiderwebbing cracks through the glass pillar she stood on. Lu Ten wasn’t about to do that yet, because it didn’t serve a purpose yet. Ozai sat on the throne, somehow. Impossibly so. Azulon was dead, and Zuko had been recalled. It had been a slow trek to his cousin’s banishment, but a steady one, almost predictable, in retrospect. Zuko’s quiet comments, the shifts in his stance, the way he cared for his swords.

What wasn’t predictable, even in retrospect, was Zuko just vanishing for three years, only to show up with a group of mixed benders, alongside at least one non-bender who was terrifyingly well-trained, in the middle of a desert, with a sinking tower behind them. Additionally, if the reports were to be believed, their group had infiltrated the Pohuai Stronghold, broken out a high-security prisoner who was _supposed_ to be going through interrogation, not running free, and escaped with her, alongside with a dozen scrolls that Admiral Zhao had insisted were of extreme importance. Said scrolls were half the reason Lu Ten had travelled to the stronghold, the other half being the prisoner who had owned them--now dead--and the woman who’d escaped.

It made very little sense. Zuko had an impossible amount of loyalty in him, and for him to attack the stronghold didn’t seem to have any purpose, beyond freeing the prisoner, which was even more confusing. Lu Ten had thought he was coerced at first, but Huazo had a razor-sharp memory and was a horrible liar. She’d said that Zuko had willingly defended the sky bison, got on last, helped by one of the non-benders of the group. If Zuko had been under pressure or blackmail of some kind, he should have sided with Lu Ten and his warriors, not the rag-tag group of teenagers.

It was sheer luck that they’d found the group after their attack on Pohuai. Then again, it wasn’t exactly hard to spot a flying bison in a desert sky, and those who had read Professor Zei’s scrolls before his… death, had recalled that the desert had been a point of interest in them. However, it had been dumb luck that they’d come across the same section of the desert as his cousins’ group of rag-tag fighters.

The Air Nomads had chosen to stay out of the war. They’d barely been seen since it had begun, and a flying bison stood out, airbenders stood out. It brought into question why exactly the airbending boy, the one who already had mastery tattoos, would join up with a group of terrorists. Airbenders, if they were nomads, were utterly peaceful. They didn’t even eat meat. To have one not only travelling with the group but fighting alongside them, was not only unexpected but absurd.

Azula had finished her kata’s. She was Crown Princess now, wearing the hairpiece that declared it and all, not a hair out of place, like usual, and Lu Ten pushed down the irrational urge to do something stupid like finding a sword and stabbing her in the throat. He wasn’t thinking clearly; getting knocked out by a fourteen-year-old wielding a pair of fans had gotten him in a bad mood, and Azula was even younger than that girl was, and even better trained. If a girl with fans, of all things, had beaten him, Azula certainly would as well.

He’d sent out an alert, for a flying bison, alongside descriptions of the six fighters. They were clearly planning for something, wearing all black and fighting as well as they did.

Two of them had been from the Water Tribe, because nobody else wore those hairstyles, and Lu Ten had never seen a boomerang anywhere but in scrolls, and those scrolls always said Water Tribe. Southern, Lu Ten would guess, considering how the Northern Tribe was completely cut off and had been under siege for several weeks. And he knew for a fact that the Southern Water Tribe had been completely decimated over the course of the war, and that they had a high-level Southern prisoner at the Boiling Rock. Mai, Azula’s knife-throwing friend, had mentioned it when speaking to Ty Lee, Azula’s far-too-energetic friend. Apparently, Mai’s uncle ran the prison.

It was as good a lead as any, and it would get him away from his youngest cousin. She was on her way to Ba Sing Se, and in her own words, had no time for a pathetic little group of rebels who couldn’t even stand their ground. Lu Ten hadn’t mentioned that her older, supposedly dead-or-banished brother was a member of that pathetic little group or that they weren’t pathetic at all. Anyone who could take out half of his soldiers when their group was that small had his respect. They certainly weren’t pathetic.

“Huazo,” Lu Ten said, metaphorically turning to his second-in-command. She didn’t even blink, nor did she salute him, not giving any sign that he’d even spoken, just like she always did when he only spoke, and didn’t move. “You have a list of Boiling Rock prisoners?”

She did. He knew she did because she had a perfect memory. Huazo didn’t even have to pull a list out or ask for someone to bring them one. She simply gave the tiniest of all nods, eyes flickering to glance at him. Her hair was pinned up high, finished with a simple band, undecorated, her uniform tucked and altered in certain ways, making her look like the picture-perfect soldier you’d see on a poster. Utterly practical.

So the quiet affirmative was already certain to happen, but they played their game often, and they played it well. Lu Ten nodded, just as Huazo had, slightly, barely there, eyes following Azula, who’d begun a new kata, after a few moments of looking around, as if she’d hoped someone might approach to congratulate her.

“Any Water Tribe prisoners?”

“One. Hakoda, a chief from the Southern Water Tribe.”

“Zoryu, prepare a war balloon,” Lu Ten ordered, and his other second-in-command, who called himself Lu Ten’s right hand, as opposed to a second-in-command, nodded, performing a slight, but proper bow, before he darted off to do that.

It wasn’t Lu Ten’s first time at Boiling Rock. The only other time he’d visited had been to drop off a group of high-priority Earth Kingdom prisoners, an older Earthbender and a non-bending woman who was advertised as even more dangerous than the bender was. Huazo and Zoryu had been the ones to come with him, the only ones he trusted enough to watch his back at an inescapable prison, where virtually everyone was looking for a way out. He only brought the two of them, again, only trusting them.

Within days, the prison was rising up from the ocean ahead of them, a partially dormant, or perhaps fully-dormant, or maybe even an active volcano pushing above the sea. It had never been made clear to Lu Ten exactly what the status of the island was. Huazo, more of a “burn-bright-and-fast” bender, was guiding the ship, while Zoryu was supplying the ship with fire, having only just switched off with Lu Ten.

“Time to go down,” Huazo called over the wind that had been smacking at them for the past few hours of the journey, making it even more of a pain. But, after long enough - too long, Lu Ten had never really liked airships - they were landing at the docks, Huazo vaulting over the side of the balloon to tie it down, Zoryu cooling the flames further.

“Prince Lu Ten,” one of the guards said, and Lu Ten resisted the urge to sigh heavily. But protocol was supposedly important, so he held his tongue and said what he was supposed to say, letting his group be dragged around the island like hapless turtleducks, which they certainly weren’t.

“We’ve had a situation,” was the most interesting thing that happened throughout the entire tour, and Lu Ten caught a slight whisper of _finally_ from Huazo and a soft groan of despair from Zoryu.

The situation turned out to be a riot. A big one, in the middle of the prison yard, and Lu Ten could only wonder how it had started so fast. That was as far as he got before there was a shout from the far right of the balcony they were on and turned to see someone he’d already met.

It was the girl with the fans from the desert. If she hadn’t been in motion, fighting, Lu Ten wouldn’t have been able to recognize her, red hair pulled into a half-ponytail, and dressed in prison rags, instead of the high ponytail, wearing dark clothing with a mark across her lower face. Even without her fans, Lu Ten recognized her, as she pulled the exact same move she had on him, on another guard, rolling away and into a crouch that she burst from immediately, already running. Heading straight towards them.

Huazo darted forwards, punching out twice, and the girl dove away, grabbing onto the balcony railing, and swinging under and up, flipping back over, avoiding them all. Huazo didn’t stop, sending more flames towards her, and she narrowly spun out of the way, dropping to the ground and kicking Huazo’s feet out from under her. Huazo hit the ground hard, armour clattering, and Lu Ten sunk into a defensive stance. He wasn’t one for defence, but offence had gotten him beat the last time he’d faced off against the girl. If the first way didn’t work, you tried a new way.

She grinned, and charged, flipping over her hands and avoiding the jet of flames that Zoryu blasted, rolling and charging forwards, jumping and kicking at him. Zoryu narrowly dodged, and the two started to brawl, close-quarters and all. Lu Ten gritted his teeth in frustration, trying to rationalize what was an acceptable risk in the situation. If he missed, he’d hit Zoryu, probably burn him, with how focused on the girl he was. But it was also becoming increasingly clear that the only reason Zoryu was still going was that the girl was bare-handed and visibly exhausted.

From behind Lu Ten, there came another shout--it was more of a scream, really. He risked a glance, eyes widening at the sight of the owner of a badly-scarred face whipping around, ankle hooking around a guard and slamming him to the floor. It wasn’t even a question of who had Lu Ten’s attention; Zoryu was a warrior and a capable one. He could fight and fight well. Zuko was a teenager and Lu Ten’s cousin.

Huazo was already back on her feet, seconds after being taken down. Lu Ten pointed at the brawl between Zoryu and the girl, before turning, and running for Zuko. Zuko, who narrowed his eyes, stepped forwards, and swept his hands, flames cascading towards Lu Ten. It wasn’t the--not rudimentary, Zuko had never been rudimentary unless you compared him to Azula, but everyone looked rudimentary when compared to Azula--standard firebending that Lu Ten remembered his cousin using. It focused on the basics of footwork and the rules that went unspoken in firebending but were always there. Attacks didn’t consistently flow like waterbending but had clear stops and starts, pausing to give the bender a moment to inhale and exhale, and Zuko followed those rules.

And at the same time, he didn’t. He kicked out in an airbender move--Lu Ten’s father was rather obsessed with airbending, despite never having seen it performed--and held his palms in when he defended, in a rare earthbending style, caught Lu Ten’s flames and spun them around himself, aiming the fire right back at Lu Ten, as if he was waterbending. And while he did have a focus on firebending basics, he also used new forms, ones that Lu Ten hadn’t faced before, and while his memory wasn’t anywhere near as good as Huazo’s, he would know if he was facing off against any of the official firebending forms.

Zuko wasn’t using many official firebending forms, and within minutes of his first attack, he was shoulder to shoulder with the girl who’d fought with fans, a half-glare, half-snarl on her face. Zuko shouted something at her over the roar of Zoryu’s flames, and she nodded, spinning around him as he blocked, the fire obscuring Lu Ten’s view of both of the teenagers. When they cleared, the girl was gone, but Zuko was still there.

Strange. Huazo didn’t care, pummeling Lu ten’s cousin with fire, and he swept his arms in circles, his own shields spinning with the motion, absorbing Huazo’s hit. Lu Ten gritted his teeth.

“Find the girl!” He shouted, taking over the offence. “I have Zuko!”

Zuko didn’t say anything. He was starting to look panicked, and nobody was around. In any case, Lu Ten didn’t need to scar his cousin any more than he already was - metaphorically and literally. He cooled his flames, and without either of them saying a word, they both stopped lobbing handfuls of burning heat at each other, staring.

Lu Ten finally got a look at his cousin, the boy finally standing still. The scar across his face had healed as well as Lu Ten could have hoped for, hidden by the ragged hair that didn’t look like anyone had cared for it for a long time. He was taller, obviously, and unlike back in the desert, was in prison clothing, not the worrying black gear. He was panting slightly but was calm, hands up in tight fists, feet spread, knees bent, stance perfect.

“What are you doing?” Lu Ten demanded, trying not to scare Zuko, not sure that he even would manage to scare Zuko. The kid had somehow ended up in Boiling Rock, possibly on-purpose since Lu Ten would have been alerted if his supposedly-dead and certainly-banished cousin had been imprisoned.

“What’s right,” Zuko answered, the rise and fall of his shoulders slowing down, both eyes narrowed. The one that was burnt was a narrow slit, the ear on that side hidden by Zuko’s hair, likely also deformed. The last time Lu Ten had seen his cousin, he’d been nearly unconscious, stubbornly hanging on, not crying. He was simply staring at the picture of the Fire Lord on the wall, glaring at it, enough that it could have actually started burning and Lu Ten wouldn’t have been surprised. The wound had been open, blistering red, the skin curling in and peeling off, the eye tightly shut, the smell of singled flesh and burning hair all that Lu Ten could remember, beyond that glare.

“Doesn’t look like it to me!” Lu Ten snapped, not sure who or what he was mad at. Ozai, for burning his son, for banishing him. Azula, for being so good, and always shoving it in her brother’s face. Ursa, for not protecting her son better, Azulon and Iroh for not noticing and intervening beyond Piando, himself, for letting it all happen. Maybe he was mad at Zuko too, for just disappearing. Maybe he was mad at all of them.

Zuko took it for something though, sprinting right at Lu Ten, one fist back, flames already spinning around it, golden-orange, not the dark red they’d once been, and Lu Ten raised, ready for the block, but it never came, the flames never left Zuko’s hand, held in close around his fingers and wrist. Lu Ten changed his stance, narrowly getting into position, heart thrumming because nobody did that unless they were novices, and yet Zuko was here, doing that and--

The fire vanished and Zuko rolled. Lu Ten spun, still trying to process, and stared at his cousin for a full moment, watching his run. Then he took off directly after him, trying not to grind his teeth because this was becoming a battle he was losing.

Zuko and the girl had to know each other well. Because they’d clearly trained together. Following Zuko brought Lu Ten to the gondola level, where the girl was fighting at least a dozen different people, all of them firebenders. She knew the kata’s, deftly weaving around them, ducking low and grabbing ankles, blocking wrists after flames were gone, taking advantage of her small stature to get in their space, and holding herself close for a few moments, landing knees and elbows before she was gone. At such a close range, firebending was almost impossible to use with any amount of control. It was also rare to have anyone get that close in a fight when one of the fighters was a bender.

Lu Ten had been taken out that way. And it looked like several guards had also experienced it, including Zoryu. Hauzo, however, was still standing, furious but with her feet planted, motions as sharp as always.

Zuko sprinted right through the group, twisting as he went and bringing up a shield of fire with one hand, in a very waterbender move, rotating fully and continuing to run, straight towards Huazo. She turned her attention to him, and their flames clashed, leaving scorch marks on the stones. Lu Ten’s teeth clenched again, and he settled into a stance, eyes following the two firebenders, not overly concerned with the girl. There was no point in attacking her unless she was going for him, which she hadn’t done yet.

It happened impossibly-fast, like when you released lightning. One moment, the girl was spinning around a guard, locking her ankles around his neck and flipping with him, smashing him into the ground, and the next, Zuko had a knife to Huazo’s throat, her helmet missing. The girl was beside Zuko, and everyone froze.

“We’re leaving,” Zuko declared, the knife slipping closer to Huazo’s chin. Zuko and the girl were both shorter than Huazo was, meaning that she was at an awkward angle, with next to no leverage. Lu Ten would have liked to say his cousin wouldn’t do it, but he didn’t know his cousin anymore. “Or she dies.”

A pause. Huazo was spitting fury, and likely would be spitting sparks, if she had been stupid enough to fight back with a knife at her throat. She wasn’t stupid, so she stayed still, and let the two drag her towards the gondolas. The girl stood by the lever, as Zuko threw Huazo in, the lack of shouting indicating that yes, that hit he delivered right before doing so had knocked her out. He got in as well, and the girl pushed the lever, starting the gondola, and then began to kick at it. It snapped, and she sprinted towards the gondola, which was rising, pulling away.

She wasn’t going to make it. And then, she did, Zuko leaning out the window and grabbing her arm, swinging her up and letting go at the peak of the swing. The girl grabbed the window ledge and vanished into the gondola. Lu Ten clenched his fists, watching as the gondola, his second-in-command, and his cousin left. There was no way they would catch up, or stop them, not without killing all three of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Phi (again, I have no variety, do I) and the wine mother herself, Night_Scroller, get the credit for making sure I didn't look overly stupid in this chapter. You can find Phi on AO3 with the name of m3owww and Night on Tumblr at night-scroller because I couldn't find your AO3 account and it's been a long day. Also, guys, I keep on finding your accounts through the bookmarks that you've made. Both Syv and Jay. I'm not kidding. I search up your username alongside AO3 and that's how I find you. Through things that you've bookmarked.
> 
> [Tumblr Link](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)
> 
> [Discord Server Link](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though, guys. That tower had no stairs, what were the builders thinking? _Oh, yeah, let's build a really big fucking tower, and not add stairs, despite adding windows! What a great use of our time!_

“What in the world,” Suki whispered, stepping into the room. She wasn’t the biggest fan of reading, even though she was proficient at it--Aang wasn’t the biggest fan of fighting, even though he was good at it--hence her desire to drag Sokka around to find something interesting that would perhaps blow up in their faces and set the library on fire.

From what she had skimmed, the information Wan Shi Tong’s library contained was absolutely terrifying, no matter who held it. Suki had found a book detailing fine-tuned torture techniques, right alongside one that had impossibly detailed diagrams of the human body that explained every single function one could possibly question in tiny characters. They were both sorted together because Wan Shi Tong didn’t see a difference; they both dealt with the human body, therefore they were located in the same section, alongside a stack of scrolls that were about advanced healing techniques for a deadly illness.

It was sick, how the spirit thought humans were awful, and yet sorted scrolls on healing techniques alongside heavy, leather-bound weights that could teach you how to learn anything from anyone, given the right tools and enough time. It was hypocritical and reminded Suki of her mother, who would say no, she could not attend the fighting lessons, yet she was also expected to be able to preserve their culture. She wasn’t sure how her mind connected the two, but all that mattered was that it did.

“Suki?” Sokka said, his footsteps echoing in the dead space, and he came to a stop beside her, only a few paces into the room. It was circular, a dome that showed a depiction of--dear spirits. If that was what Suki thought it was, she might actually throw up. “What is that--”

“A comet,” Suki replied, cutting him off, and not needing to say anything else. Sokka was smart, and while he didn’t always seem like he was listening, he always was, and he had a killer memory for odd details that most people would just forget. And while the comet had never been used in known history to do something, Suki could remember Wan Shi Tong’s words when they’d entered the library, how he’d spoken of a Fire Nation soldier searching for secrets to help him defeat his enemy. If that had been the last human in the library, then it was entirely possible that they’d found the room, and discovered the comet. “And this is a predictions room.”

“A predictions room?”

“It’s an old Earth Kingdom design,” Suki whispered, stepping further into the room, towards the dials in the center, carved of stone, or perhaps earthbent to near-perfection, the metal cogs and levers inserted to allow anyone to work it. “They’re rare. Supposedly only the King of Ba Sing Se has one, and they’re used to predict the future, with total accuracy.”

“And the comet--” Sokka said, able to understand from her awful attempt at an explanation of what a predictions room was. “What’s with the comet?”

“The moon gives waterbenders strength,” Suki reminded him, reaching out to let her fingers touch the carved symbols in the stone dials, in horrified awe, “The sun gives firebenders theirs. The comet is--”

She choked, which was stupid, she was better than that, but she choked up, all the same, one of her fists clenching with the irrational urge to punch the dials. That wouldn’t do anything but leave her hand throbbing in pain, so she managed to resist it. Sokka, thankfully, was good at translating horrified-Suki-speak into something he could understand.

“If the moon and sun give power,” Sokka said, putting both hands on one of the dials, and pushing, the stone grinding but turning easily enough, the date clicking over by a day, back a day. “Then something could take it away, right?”

“An eclipse,” Suki suggested, brightening up, and grabbing ahold of the lever, pulling it back, and feeling it click under her hands. She let go and watched the room change. “We need to work back from the comet, and if there’s an eclipse between now and then--”

“And if there’s not?”

Suki swallowed hard, their eyes meeting, both of them knowing that if the comet were to be used properly by the Fire Nation, it could spell doom for everyone involved, no matter who they were. “Then we’re fucked.”

He nodded grimly, sliding the date back by another day. “Good to know.”

One day, then another, then another. They went by week after week, a slow process that required them to move the dial one space, then click back the lever. occasionally, they had to switch other dials as well, adding to the time it took to check every day, making the task more frustrating than it had any right to be.

Then the ground began to shake under them. Suki stumbled, caught off-guard, and smacked her leg on the dials, catching herself using them, managing not to change the date as they stood up. They were nowhere near done checking all the dates, and with each one that yielded no results, Suki’s anxiety flared, bit by bit, no matter how hard she stomped it down and focused on her job.

“Is Toph doing this?” Sokka shouted, which was unnecessary. He looked ready to bolt, just like Suki wanted to, but she forced herself to stay where she was, shaking her head.

“Not while we’re inside. It’s someone else!”

“We gotta check!”

She knew that he meant the dates, and not that it was Toph. Without anything but a nod, she gripped the lever in both hands, eyes following as he shifted the date again, closer and closer to their current one. She pushed the lever, and it clicked, and the room changed. Then they did it again. And again.

“There!” Suki almost shouted, pointing at the wall, which had exactly what they needed. Sokka’s head whipped around, checking that they hadn’t made a mistake, and he spun back around, pulling out a writing tool, and reading over the date, only to realize something new.

“I don’t have paper!”

Suki grabbed her sleeve in one hand, using her teeth to yank off her glove, exposing her bare forearm, skin pristine, left without any visible marks, leaving only little scars, from scrapes and small cuts, a perfect place to scrawl the date. She held it out to Sokka, who didn’t hesitate to scribble a copy of the date on her skin.

“Let’s go!”

Sand was falling from the ceilings as they sprinted back towards their rope, the library shuttering around them, books falling from their shelves, scrolls rolling across the floor. A sort of wolf-coyote-fox spirit ran across the hall, nearly tripping Suki, who narrowly caught herself in a roll and kept going. 

They found Katara and Aang trying to fend off Wan Shi Tong, with a fair amount of difficulty, Momo flapping around their heads, squawking loudly and occasionally pelting the spirit with rocks.

Suki sped up, pushing herself harder the closer they got, and jumped at Wan Shi Tong from behind, scrambling up his back. She vaulted over his head, twisting in the air, and slammed both feet into the white face, flipping backwards and landing in a crouch, snapping both war fans out, not sure what they’d do. He reeled, and then steadied, seething furiously.

“Go!” She shouted to Katara, who nodded, climbing up onto the railing, and wobbling, trying to find her balance. She jumped, grabbing the rope by the bottom in both hands, and started to climb, scrambling up it as best she could.

Wan Shi Tong drew up to his full height and hissed at Suki, who hadn’t been aware that birds could do that.

“Humans,” Wan Shi Tong snarled, rising to his full height, wings starting to stretch out to the sides, casting an imposing figure. But Suki hadn’t made it as far as she had by backing down when faced with a stronger enemy. She didn’t even falter, darting backwards when the bird snapped his teeth at her, retaliating with a sharp kick to the beak.

“Hey, idiot!” Sokka shouted, and Wan Shi Tong spun around, focusing on him. Suki ducked, hitting the floor, and narrowly avoiding the wing that would have knocked her over the side of the railing. There was the distinct sound of Sokka’s boomerang flying through the air, and Suki pushed herself up, in time to see it hit the spirit in the back of the head.

Aang was scrambling up the rope, and Suki threw herself at the spirit again, grabbing his feathers and climbing back up, swinging around his neck and kicking him in the beak, landing on the ground at his feet. She drew her dagger, and lunged, stabbing Wan Shi Tong in the foot, which was definitely disrespectful, but he’d tried to kill them first. Suki only respected people who didn’t try and kill their friends.

The bird shrieked and flapped its wings, the gusts of wind knocking Suki backwards, dagger still in hand. Sokka caught her under the arms, and she let him steady her, sheathing her knife and raising both fists, right beside him. They exchanged the barest of glances and both ran forwards, right at Wan Shi Tong.

Suki changed directions at the last second, veering straight off to the left. She jumped at the railing, grabbing it and springing on, balancing with her arms out to the sides, already running the few steps needed. She jumped like Katara had, hands reaching for the rope that still hung from above, and grabbing onto it. She swung, already hauling herself up hand over hand, not bothering to stop and hook her feet in it, just pulling herself up as fast as she could.

Below her, the rope swung with a weight, indicating that Sokka had gotten on it as well. Suki sped up, gritting her teeth as her arms started to burn, legs swinging under her. She could still see Aang and Katara, near the top of the rope, almost out, and risked a glance behind them.

Wan Shi Tong was glaring. He apparently didn’t care enough to chase them up the rope, which could only be a relief. Suki wasn’t in the mood to fight off a giant spirit while hanging from a rope.

“For the love of--” Suki groaned, upon reaching the window. The library really was sinking, so she offered Sokka a hand and pulled him up. Sokka didn’t hesitate to cut the rope, the reverend length falling from where it was caught on the window down towards Wan Shi Tong, smacking the bird in the face. Suki couldn’t even bring herself to feel bad as she drew her fans, yanking up her mask to cover her mouth and nose. Yes, it was burning hot out, but they were also fighting in a desert, and she didn’t want to inhale any more sand then she had to.

Sokka had the same idea, as it turned out, and the two of them jumped the admittedly very short distance from the window down onto the sand dunes, weapons drawn, and joined the fray.

Katara was gripping Aang’s glider in her hands, not that it would do too much good against a troop of firebenders, being wood and all, and she could airbend to protect it, but she was close to Appa, who was doing a very good job of glaring at anyone who came close, and Zuko was doing a good job of sending fireballs to intercept anything that went near their waterbender.

Toph was struggling the most. Struggling wasn’t quite the right word, but she was having issues with the sand, and had, likely to counter that difficulty, created a circle of stone to stand on, keeping her feet planted as she punched out, trying to bend how she normally did, but failing. Instead of spears of stone and pillars of dirt, the sand kicked up in a mimicry of her usual moves, doing an excellent job of knocking the soldiers off-balance, but failing to knock them out in full, leaving that role to Zuko and Aang.

Suki’s feet sank into the sand as she ran across it, and she already knew she’d have to change her fighting style to adapt to the sand. Anything that needed a push-off or a side was out of the question; the sand wasn’t going to let those moves play out as usual.

She snapped her fans open, sweeping one across her face, knocking the fireball away, and swinging the second, doing the same to the next attack, and the next, running forwards all the while, flipping her fans shut and grabbing the bender’s wrist, spinning in under it, not hesitating to perform a break. They screamed and moved to set her on fire with their good hand. Suki ducked, spinning around them, and kicking them in the back of the hip, down into the sand, her fans opening again, defending against a dagger of fire.

Her new attacker was helmetless, his hair dark, pulled into one of those top-knots, and decorated with a fancy golden headpiece that Suki marked as a sign of royalty, making the man someone who Zuko was related to. He was too young to be a father or grandfather, and Zuko only had a sister, as far as he knew, leaving the obvious guess to be Lu Ten, his cousin.

Well, she wasn’t about to go easy on him, batting away his daggers with her fans, not letting him land a hit. He was visibly furious, and that was affecting his bending, affecting his fighting. In a fight, you had to use your emotions, you had to control them. If you let fear or anger take over, you would end up losing, hurt, or dead. They could be useful, letting you know when you should back down or keeping you alive, but you had to be the boss, not the other way around.

Lu Ten didn’t seem to be doing too good of a job at that, slashing at Suki’s stomach in a rookie mistake. She grabbed his wrist from behind when he overextended the motion, and swung under, twisting up and grabbing onto his armour with her free hand, fans dropped on the sand behind her. Using her leverage, she kicked her legs up, over his shoulder and came around, so she was behind him.

From there, slipping into a choke was easy, and she gripped him from behind with her legs, back in the sand, ankles locked over his stomach, arm across his throat, her head hid behind his. His previous anger gave way to panic, the blind spot that the emotions came with making him forget he could firebend, and he thrashed, trying to free himself, rolling around in the sand to try and gain the advantage. Suki didn’t let him, maintaining her position on his back until he went limp. Even then, she didn’t dare chance it, waiting a little while longer before letting go, to ensure that he wasn’t faking.

She relaxed slowly, and once she was sure he wasn’t faking, pushed him off, rolling away and scrambling to her feet, grabbing her fans on the way up. The battle seemed to almost be over, which was good, and she took off towards Appa, where Katara was already at the reins, Momo on her shoulders, wearing a fierce expression. Aang grabbed Toph under the arms, and boosted both of them into the saddle, Toph screaming all the way there.

Zuko continued to fight, feet planted before Appa, deflecting the flames that were launched at the flying bison. Sokka slammed his boomerang into a soldier's helmet, sending her reeling, and went sprinting towards the saddle, grabbing onto the bison’s fur, and starting to climb. Suki snapped her fans shut, and jumped, reaching for Katara’s hand, letting the waterbender pull her up into the saddle. Some time out of the sun and in a place that was more suited for a waterbender had done her good, it seemed, and Suki vaulted into the saddle.

“Let’s go!” Sokka yelled, leaning over the saddle’s edge as they began to take off. “C’mon!”

Zuko twisted, took one step, then another, and jumped, grabbing onto Appa’s fur as the bison rose up, beginning to fly away. He stretched one hand up, and Sokka grabbed it in both of his, hauling Zuko to safety as a fireball, powered by several benders, flew towards them. Aang grabbed Suki’s fans from her hands, and sent a gust of wind directly towards the flames, sending it back towards the sandy dunes, and boosting them away.

The soldiers disappeared into the distance, and the only audible sounds were the wind, and the heavy breaths they were all taking, the adrenaline slowly fading the further away from the library they got. Suki, within moments of their escape, yanked her scarf down, whirling to face Zuko and Toph. “Where did they come from?”

“War balloons,” Toph said roughly, rubbing at the soles of her feet with one hand, suppressing a slight wince as she did so, “Zuko set ‘em on fire, they’re probably buried by now. I think I figured out how to make a pit without really meaning to.”

“How’d they find us?”

“Well, we’re not exactly stealthy,” Toph snarked, gesturing with a hand, “Most trained sky bison are in the Air Temples, they’re not flying around willy-nilly with six suicidal teenagers onboard.”

“We’re not suicidal,” Zuko snapped, and Toph crossed her arms, huffing. “And you’re twelve, just like Aang. You’re not teenagers.”

“Whatever, Sparky,” Toph said, pulling the fabric over her nose and mouth down. Like Suki and Sokka, the rest of them had also realized the benefits of keeping the scarfs up during the fight. “What matters is that we don’t see them ever again, they suck. D’you think they followed us from Pohaui?”

“It’s possible,” Sokka said, sighing, and rubbing at his face, realizing that he was still wearing his scarf. He pulled it off, then remembered what he and Suki had already forgotten, and brightened. “Hey! We found something! Before the library started to sink - what was that about, anyway?”

“Well,” Aang winced. Suki gingerly removed her glove and pulled up her sleeve. The ink was still there, slightly smudged, but easily legible. Sokka had good writing, after all, and being in a panicked rush hadn’t changed it. She held her arm out to Sokka, who’d already found a scroll in Katara’s pack, which had been thrown into the saddle at some point, and he started to transcribe it, carefully. “One of those fox-wolf things came in and said something to him, and he got really mad. Like, really mad. Said that we were friends of the Fire Nation and that they’d destroy his library, I think. So, he said he was going to bury it. And then he tried to kill us.”

“Can we please,” Sokka demanded, hand steady as he finished marking the date, “Please, please, have one mission, where nobody tries to kill us, and nothing goes wrong?”

“I think this one went pretty well,” Suki said, tapping a finger on the page above the date, and grinning at the others. “Because we found a predictions room.”

“Wait,” Toph said, “Ain’t that one of those fancy-ass--”

“Toph!”

“--spinny rooms that can tell you about, like the moon and stuff?”

“Yes,” Suki said, nodding, barely able to contain the urge to jump up and down and celebrate and maybe have a party or two. She was more controlled than Aang was, however, and therefore stayed steady. “So, whoever was here before us, they must have used the room, because it was showing a comet.”

She didn’t have to explain that, but Aang did put up his hand, looking slightly queasy. “When, exactly, is that comet coming?”

“We… didn’t write that down,” Sokka admitted, sheepishly, to a blank look from Zuko that blatantly told them how impressed he was with their skills. “But, we did find out some good news. On this day, there’s going to be a solar eclipse. Eight minutes, no firebending, for anyone.”

“We can attack the Fire Nation,” Suki said, quickly adding on before anyone could protest the idea, “Not the Fire Nation, but we can attack the capital. The palace, whatever you want to call it. Nobody needs to get hurt but the Fire Lord, and we can get someone new on the throne, someone who can start stopping this war.”

“I’m not doing that,” Zuko said immediately, shaking his head, and nobody needed to ask why, nor were any of them going to. They didn’t say anything about it either, just let him put down the boundaries and respected them.

“So, eight minutes,” Katara said, climbing back into the saddle, letting Appa fly without a guide. She’d been listening, clearly, her eyes narrowed and hair rippling in the wind, having come loose from its braid at some point along the journey. “To do it. That’s doable, right?”

“Are you kidding?” Toph said, punching one hand into the opposite palm. Had they been on solid ground, it would have trembled. “I only need four.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I bow down again - no, wait, it's Phi. She doesn't get a bow. She gets a pat on the head for her trouble, she volunteered to beta-read for me, she knew what she was getting into. In any case, this chapter was beta-read by both [Phi](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww) and [Jay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdwafflecereal/pseuds/birdwafflecereal).
> 
> My [Tumblr](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests)
> 
> The [Discord Server](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz)


	6. Toph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zuko doesn't know how to handle siblings who don't want to kill him.

When Zuko and Suki got back, it wasn't good. Toph wasn’t a poetic person or someone who liked literature and all that crap, but she’d been forced to read--well, have other people read to her--enough books to know that if she _did_ have a pair of functioning eyes, their expressions would be the definition of murderous. She didn’t share that thought because one, Katara didn’t seem to think her blind jokes are funny despite being the peak of comedy, and two, she wasn’t sure that Katara would approve, and Katara, for all her lovey-dovey-let's-be-siblings attitude, could actually be moderately scary when she chose to be. When it was aimed at other people, it was funny. When Toph was the target, not so much.

Katara wasn’t the only one who decided that they were siblings. Sokka seemed to believe it too, despite not being as obvious about his thoughts on the matter, Aang seemingly adopted Toph as a sibling within moments of meeting her, and Suki tried to teach her to use those fans she smacked people with--it rarely went well, but the sentiment was appreciated. In the end, Zuko was the one that Toph adopted, because Zuko had a shitty family and was, therefore, the exception. He also didn’t seem to understand the concept of siblings who didn’t try and murder you.

Suki stomped her way through their camp upon returning, snapping something at Katara on the way past, shutting the waterbender up quickly enough, and kept everyone else from going near her. It wasn’t very good stomping, because it was the kind of stomping that told Toph that Suki was both furious and maybe about to cry, which was always the stomping Toph hated the most. So, instead of going after Katara like Aang was trying to, despite Katara’s best efforts, Toph stayed where she was, hugging her legs to her chest, trying not to get lost in her thoughts.

Toph rarely got lost in her thoughts. But when she did, it was always hard to find herself again. And with the others planning out their attack on the Fire Nation, or out working on gathering their allies, Toph was silent. She wasn’t really a strategist, and she didn’t want to go to some dumb Fire Nation prison either, no matter how excited Suki sounded by the idea. 

She waited. 

Eventually, Zuko sat down beside her. She could sense a difference from when he’d first gotten back with Suki to now. She’d guess it was the clothes since no way would Sparky be stupid enough to sneak into a prison in that, not when she’d overheard Suki saying that they could pretend to be prisoners.

That idea had also seemed dumb to Toph, but it seemed like it had turned out fine. They were both alive, and as far as she could see--ha! Take that Katara--not horribly maimed. Then again it had taken her a month to realize Zuko had a scar because nobody ever mentioned it, and again, she was _blind_. They kept forgetting that, which gave her so many opportunities to insert jokes.

“So, what happened?” She asked, unfurling from her thinking position, and scooching over to be right beside Zuko. She was on his left side, which was usually how he positioned himself--Toph suspected it had to do with trusting people and having a near-blind and deaf side. She could respect that. He was warm, like always, but the sun had set already, and it was starting to get cold. And Zuko was a firebender. “Did you find their dad?”

“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly, and Toph wondered if they really should have sent the two members of their group who had issues with parents on the mission to find a parent. Not that she would have gone, between no earthsense and her own issues with parental figures. They should have sent the two people who actually knew Hakoda. “It didn’t go too well.”

“Bust some heads?” She asked, leaning against him. A few weeks earlier, he would have tensed up, and slowly relaxed. Now, he didn’t even seem surprised by the contact, and she tipped her head to rest on his shoulder.

“Our escape wasn’t exactly _quiet_.”

“Huh,” Toph remarked, setting a hand down on the ground, fingers arched. She twitched, and stone rose, filling her palm, and she formed it into a ball, playing with it, making the earth shift into one shape after another, not really sure why she was doing it. Who cared. “Sounds fun.”

“Hm.”

That was Zuko for “I have an opinion and/or thought on that subject, but I also don’t know how to voice it and maybe I don’t want to voice it so I’m doing this instead so you don’t think that I’m ignoring you”. Toph was very good at decoding Zuko-speak. Better than anyone else.

Toph sighed, letting the rock in her hand fall to the ground. It melted back into place. She huffed, crossing her arms, and leaning a bit more weight on Zuko, who didn’t complain, only set a hand on the ground to balance himself. “Did you find Hakoda, at least?”

“Yeah,” Zuko said quietly, and Toph tensed, picking up how his heartbeat changed. “Suki--she yelled at him. I didn’t actually get to talk to him.”

“Damn,” Toph said, stretching her hands over her head, flexing her fingers out, feeling and hearing her knuckles pop. Katara thought that it was bad for her health, but Suki said it was fine, and while Katara was cool, Suki was a total _badass_. Like Kyoshi. Toph wanted to be like Kyoshi when she was older. Except even better. “So, you just left?”

“We didn’t really get a chance to get him out,” Zuko said sheepishly, ducking his head, which Toph had long ago figured out meant he was trying to hide his face, and whatever expression was on it. Not like it changed much with her. “Someone recognized me, one of the prisoners. Got mad, decided to get revenge or something. We started a riot.”

“Sounds fun,” Toph said, dropping her arms and shifting how she was sitting, so her back was against Zuko’s shoulder. She could sense Katara waterbending down by the river, Aang probably airbending, if the motions he was going through were actually being used, and not being run through dry. It was hard to tell with Aang. Katara was a bit easier because if she touched the water or it touched the ground, Toph could sense it. Ish.

Water was like sand. It was complicated. Kind of like Zuko. And Suki. And all of them, really. Except maybe Momo. Momo was just crazy. Toph wanted to be crazy like him, but maybe smarter-crazy. It was hard to take Momo seriously when he tried to eat rocks.

“My cousin was there.”

A few things happened in the moments after that. Aang let out a shout, and tripped over what to Toph, seemed like nothing, but if the laughter from Sokka was any indication, was probably his own feet or Katara’s water or something. Zuko’s heartbeat seemed to skip, picking up for a moment or two, as he inhaled sharply. The fire that was casting heat off Toph grew in size --she could tell because it became hotter, just for a moment or so--and then returned back to normal. And there was the distinct sound of Suki throwing something heavy. Toph’s earthsense indicated that it was one of her practice boulders, leftover from that morning. One of the smaller ones, but still impressive.

“And? What happened?”

She knew that Lu Ten--or whatever the fuck his name was--was older than Zuko. And that he was supposedly a prodigy, like his younger sister. Toph also knew that Suki had laid him on his ass in about twelve seconds flat, which usually would indicate that the person beat up was not a prodigy, but it was Suki. Suki kicked everyone’s asses. Twelve seconds was good, for the dude’s first time fighting her.

“Well. We escaped.”

Toph groaned dramatically, feeling Zuko’s heartbeat slow back down to normal, and then some, indicating he was doing his weird meditation thingy. She’d tried it once, out of curiosity. Predictably, she’d fallen asleep, which could have done with the saying up for thirty-seven hours before, but she wasn’t keen on trying it again. “Sparky, do better.”

He made an effort. Zuko was weirdly aware that she was blind - the others still forgot that, yeah, right, she couldn’t read, _hello_ , and that telling her colours wasn’t going to help much--and kept catching himself when he started to describe it in a way that didn’t really translate to her own way of understanding the world or whatever fancy way her tutor’s had put it. It was pretty entertaining actually, and by the time Katara was done bending practice or whatever she’d been doing, and came back to the fire, Toph was starting to get hungry. That was good timing, as above the fire, there was a pot of something or other cooking. Toph hadn’t been listening when Katara had said what they were eating.

Turned out, it was what amounted to rice porridge, as Toph had named it as a young child, although it was actually called congee. Toph ate without complaint, listening to the conversation, which was what it had been for the past three days, just with a bit more yelling and disappointment. They’d been counting on being about to bust Hakoda out of prison for some help.

There was always the assassination plan. Toph was a fan of that plan, even if every time Katara overheard them talking about it, she had this funny twitch in her heartbeat, and tended to stomp a bit more, and even if they weren’t allowed to talk about it around Aang. Twinkle Toes was delicate about that sort of thing. He’d gotten better about it, since they were fighting a war, but he had a long way to go, if you asked Toph.

Nobody had asked Toph yet, but if they did, she had an answer ripe and ready for them.

The arguing died out pretty quick. It was nothing that hadn’t been said before. On Appa, on the ground, on that damn boat that one time--Toph never wanted to repeat that experience--but Toph got the gist of it. Hakoda was supportive of the idea but worried that they wouldn’t be able to pull it off. There was clearly more to it than that, but Suki didn’t share, and Zuko didn’t know. The rest of them hadn’t been there.

“We can still attack,” Sokka said, tapping something, a paper by the sound of it. They were quiet when he spoke, just the snap-crackle-pop of the fire in the foreground, the river in the background, the sound of breathing and faint vibrations of movement, heartbeats slow and steady, carving a landscape for Toph to see. “I mean, there’s eight of us. Maybe they’ll even be expecting an attack on the eclipse. Where would they go if it was attacked?”

Small vibrations. They were looking at Zuko, Toph figured, both from context and the shifts that thrummed through the earth. Her legs were crossed, only the sides and part of the backs of her feet touching the ground, making it harder to see, but it was an easier position, especially with a bowl of rice porridge in her hands. She wouldn’t ever admit it to the others, but they were her siblings, basically. She trusted them to make sure that nobody snuck up on her. Just like Zuko trusted them on his blind side.

“There’s a bunker,” he rasped, voice rougher than usual. Toph wondered if it was because he hadn’t said anything for the past hour, or if it was just one of those weird things that happened. “Under the palace. Metal, lava, tunnels. If it was attacked, they’d hide there. Or, they’d leave entirely.”

“How do we know which?” Katara wondered, tapping a finger on the ground, in time with her breathing. At least, Toph was pretty sure it was a finger. Might have been a few fingers. Things were slightly fuzzy at the moment. “This is important. We can’t mess up.”

“There’s no way to tell,” Zuko said, inhaling through his nose, and letting it out. The fire moved with it, the heat growing and fading away in pulses. “If we attack, and they’re not in the bunker, we could get trapped there.”

“And if they are?” Aang asked, softer than usual as if he knew that this was a serious time, and he needed to be serious. Aang seemed to lack a serious whatever. Not that he didn’t have one, it just tended to stay hidden most of the time.

“It’s not ideal for most benders,” Zuko admitted, “Or anyone but a firebender. It’s designed that way. Lined with metal, the air is pumped in, there’s next to no water. Non-bending fighting would probably work well--it was made when most guards were non-benders, after all.”

That was a weird thing to think about. Toph knew from her history lessons that at one point in the Fire Nation, benders had been more common as artisans, people who made swords and cooked or whatever. Bending had been a tool, would be a good way of putting it. Then, Sozin happened, and benders had been conscripted into the army. Social standards had changed.

Toph hadn’t decided if she hated her teachers or appreciated them. Usually, they’d made an effort to make the classes somewhat interesting. That had been one of the classes she’d been more interested in because she’d rarely been taught about the war, much less the history before it. Her parents probably had thought she was too delicate for such violence or some such crap

Delicate. It fit Aang more than her. He’d been hard to track when they’d first met because he had such a habit of just bending the air around him and sorta float-walking. He still did it, but around her, he’d stopped. Made an effort to keep his feet on the ground more. It was reassuring, to know where he was.

“So,” Suki said, much calmer than when she’d stormed off that war balloon she and Zuko had stolen, “They could be there. They might not be.”

“When else are we going to get a chance like this,” Sokka pointed out, setting his bowl down to the side. It made enough ripples that Toph got a clear image of it, almost entirely empty. She was done hers, so she put hers aside, and set her feet flat on the ground, wiggling her toes as things came into a sharper focus. “Even if they’re not there, we should still try. At least then there’s no _what-if we went_.”

“We only have six people,” Katara said, standing up, and walking towards Toph, bending down to pick up her discarded bowl, moving towards Sokka right after, and picking up his. “That’s not many people for something like this.”

“It might work better,” Toph said, “Then if we had an army or something. Because I don’t know how to lead an army and I don’t want to. Sounds like a lot of work. And I don’t think you guys do either.”

They didn’t. Suki had been the second-in-command of the Kyoshi warriors, behind her mother, and they were a small fighting force, not an army. Zuko might have had experience, had he not been sent away from the palace when he was a kid and then banished. Aang was a no-go, and the Water Tribe siblings could have had experienced it since they were the Chief’s children, but the Water Tribe had gone off to fight, meaning that Katara and Sokka had never been taught that stuff. 

“Do you remember the layout of the bunker?” Sokka asked, the question directed towards Zuko, who hesitated, his heartbeat changing in a way that Toph was pretty sure meant he was unsure.

“Not sure.”

“If it's underground,” Toph volunteered, finding herself grinning in what she was pretty sure a writer would define as _wicked_ , because it felt like it was _wicked_ , “Then I can find it.”

“That’s actually a good point,” Sokka said with a sigh that meant he’d forgotten about her earthsense again. They didn’t really forget it, actually. More like they forgot what it did. It was hard to put into words. “And since you discovered a _new style of bending--_ ” he sounded a bit fed up with it, which was entertaining, “--we can break in no matter what.”

Silence. And then more silence, broken up by the background noise of the river and the trees, which was broken up by Katara gathering the dirty dishes and heading towards the river, the conversation ending, their group breaking up as much as it ever did, which wasn’t much. Sokka shuffled around, the crinkle of paper audible underneath the fire, and Suki dragged out the sleeping bags with Aang’s help.

“This is going to be fun,” Toph decided, standing up and cracking her knuckles. She wasn’t talking about the bending she performed a moment later, tenting slabs of stone over their sleeping beds, protecting it from the rain Katara had predicted that morning--some waterbending thing--which was already starting to fall. Toph could feel it on her arms and feet, little droplets that spattered cold, and made the fire hiss ever so much, amid the crackle-popping of it.

Appa bemoaned his lack of protection, and Toph scoffed, but obediently stomped her foot out, grabbing ahold of the earth that she needed, and curling her hands into fists, jerking it up, creating an overhang for the furry monstrosity that they called Appa. He grumbled in what might have been--better have been--thanks, and flopped down, hard enough to make the ground shake.

“It’s raining,” she felt the need to inform the others, sitting down on her section of the--whatever the fuck their sleeping arrangement was called, she didn’t know. Zuko let out one of those weird partial sighs that didn’t mean much other than… anything. It was mostly Zuko saying he was there, she was pretty sure.

Zuko was hard to understand. He seemed to understand her though, which was nice.

“Go to sleep,” Sokka grumbled in return, and Toph scowled in his general direction, before settling down, more or less.

Morning was characterized by the loss of her personal fire, also known as Zuko. He, being an annoying flame-person, woke up when the sun rose, which was annoying, because Toph liked sleeping in, and since she always pressed herself against his left side, because blind and half-blind people had to stick together, and Sparky was warm, she got woken up by him waking up.

Not that he knew that. He thought he was super-stealthy and stuff, but he wasn’t that stealthy. Well, he was. But not enough to not wake her up. It was kind of reassuring, since it meant that she wasn’t going to have to fight off a horde of pirates or thieves or whoever the fuck--sorry, Katara, whomever the fuck--had decided to run screaming into their camp for whatever reason they’d come up with.

Waking up to that was not fun, and three times was three times too many. At least with Zuko, it meant that nobody was dead yet. Unless one of them just randomly dropped dead in the middle of the night, which was yet to happen, thankfully. It was definitely possible, with how shitty their luck tended to end up being.

She stayed in her sleeping spot for as long as she could, listening to the sounds of Zuko starting a fire, the only time she was even somewhat comfortable with not using her earthsense to know where he was. A while later, Katara woke up, which was odd - usually Suki was the second person to actually get up in their group. All the same, Katara did get up, and Toph pieced together a mental impression of her and Zuko preparing breakfast silently. Free food. No worries for Toph.

Free, in the sense that she didn’t have to make it. Which was close enough for her.

“We should move camps,” Katara said before anyone else showed signs of waking up, when it was just the three of them - two of them, in Katara and Zuko’s minds. “In case someone followed you and Suki. Just in case.”

Zuko said nothing, making one of those weird noises that he always did. He was pretty non-verbal, which was kinda annoying. A shit-ton of communication was body language, which was sometimes hard to pick up on with earth sense, but Zuko was also doing the non-verbal verbal things. So, it was okay.

Moreso than if he hadn’t been. Plus, it was a weird quirk. People needed more of those. Life needed more quirks - and now she was being philosophical. Definitely time to get up and start the day, before she started questioning the really big secrets, like how they managed to pack so well. And how Suki snapped those fans open as she did. Cause that shit was impressive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the end of part one. There should be a second part, coming in maybe a month or two? I have a basic plan, but it hasn't really been fleshed out yet. We'll see.
> 
> I'd like to thank my beta-readers, who I've credited in all of them, but I'd love to thank [Pepper](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperSoniRoni/pseuds/PepperSoniRoni) and [Phi](https://www.archiveofourown.org/users/m3owww/pseuds/m3owww) especially, for beta-reading this chapter. Also, our Discord Server, full of enablers. And to anyone who left a kudo, I want to give you a hug. If you left a comment, I also want to give you a hug. (I'm being sappy, someone hit me over the head with a textbook please)
> 
> If you want to do fanart, base a fic on this, or whatever, this is my blanket permission. Go ahead. Just... email me when you're done? I'd love to see it or listen to it, or whatever. You can find my email on my profile page. Don't worry about bothering me. I'm always open for a chat.
> 
> If you want to talk to me or ask questions, my Tumblr is [js71](https://js71.tumblr.com/post/624273937698865152/submit-requests), and the [Discord server](https://discord.gg/gHwYjHufcz), where, yes, we're kind of a family now.


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